OffsetGuitars.com

Anyone seen this yet http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-1980-GRECO- ... dZViewItem

Never knew this existed.

Wow - I have never seen anything like that before...

There was an Ibanez-branded version too. There were only a few Japanese factories churning these out - the actual brand (Electra, Greco, Ibanez, Cimar, Burny, Edwards etc) actually has more to do with marketing than build quality, I suspect.

As soon as the word "mojo" appears in a guitar description, the word "wanker" appears in my mind. I mean, you might as well be claiming that it has a special snake-oil finish.

I'm sure it's a nice guitar, but the hard sell double-talk is extremely offputting.

mjet260 wrote: There was an Ibanez-branded version too. There were only a few Japanese factories churning these out - the actual brand (Electra, Greco, Ibanez, Cimar, Burny, Edwards etc) actually has more to do with marketing than build quality, I suspect.

It looks like a great guitar. I'm sure that Greco branded one is a lot higher quality than most of the others, like the one in that picture. It's a lot more accurate for a start, and a lot of those have dodgy hide-the-wood sunbursts.

There's a nice Greco Jag in CAR on Ishibashi U-Box also from the Super Real series, but I don't want to spend 70,000 yen on a copy that I can't be sure about the quality and part-replacability of.

You're right - the Grecos that I've seen (including a Gibson Firebird copy sold by a forumite a month or so ago) look to be really top-notch. A friend is waiting for a 1990s Burny 335 copy any day now (nervously waiting for the postman!!) and it looks like a real piece of art.

Can someone explain what the "lawsuit era" was?  I gather it has something to do with Japanese companies producing knockoffs of American guitars.  But I'm curious to hear more details - ie. what years was this era, what companies were involved (on both sides of the Pacific), who sued who, and why would Fender end up buying out one of the copycats and renaming their guitars as genuine Fender guitars?

Seems like an interesting story.  Is there a web site out there that details any of this?

mjet260 wrote: There was an Ibanez-branded version too. There were only a few Japanese factories churning these out - the actual brand (Electra, Greco, Ibanez, Cimar, Burny, Edwards etc) actually has more to do with marketing than build quality, I suspect.

is this the guitar kevin shields used in only shallow? it looks like it

spacecadet wrote: Can someone explain what the "lawsuit era" was?

Seems like an interesting story.  Is there a web site out there that details any of this?

Here's the whole story:

http://www.guitarattack.com/destroyer/lawsuit.htm

That's a good article and appears to be well-researched. However, I believe there is a slight error... at least from what I've found and read on the subject. The article says that the lawsuit involving the copying of the entire guitar is an urban legend. That's the only thing I would dispute.

It's true that the suit was settled and never made it to court. But it's my understanding that the suit was originally regarding the copying of the entire guitar... not just the headstock. However, in arbitration it was reluctantly agreed that the headstock shape is THE DEFINING FEATURE of a particular brand. And that's how and why the case was settled... as noted, Ibanez had already changed the headstock. And that's why, even to this day we still see nearly exact clones of all major brands... except for the headstock. Other Japanese manufacturers continued to market the Fender headstock up into the 80s. I've read of customs agents, trademark police, and Fender lawyers intercepting shipments of Fernandes and ESP $trats (with Fender headstock) nearly ten years after the famous Ibanez lawsuit. I'm not sure if Fender ever actually filed their own suit, but regardless, the earlier Norlin/Elger agreement and precedent were no doubt cited and influential in stopping them. The threat of a suit may have been enough!

In some ways, it was actually more of a defeat than a victory for the major companies. Can you imagine the monopoly if only Fender could make a $trat-style guitar?

The decision also influenced the creation of the Japanese Fender and Gibson related companies, and the Squier and Orville brands. If Japan was going to make exact knockoffs without the headstock... why not beat them at their own game and make accurate licensed copies, to include the peghead? In other words, copy ourselves and grab that piece of the pie as well!

I like the look of that a lot - people speak very highly of those Greco copies, apparently.

light years wrote: is this the guitar kevin shields used in only shallow? it looks like it

Yes, Kev used an Ibanez JM copy very much like this one.

Ibanez catalog scan:

that is really cool

I don't know, but from the photo the Ibanez version 'at least' looks like it has the proper dyed yellow wood for the three tone burst, something nobody has tried to replicate recently other than the Fender Custom Shop.