1977 Ibanez 2355 (ES-175 Copy) Hollowbody Electric Guitar

Hello, gorgeous! So the lowdown on this hard-to-find, Japanese-made beaut is that it handles like a 175 and sounds like one, but is just ever so slightly deeper (front to back) and perhaps about a pound heavier overall. Acoustically, it's also a hair less alive than old 175s (but similar to newer ones) -- but in the case of this guitar that might be an advantage because the thicker front/back ply means it doesn't get feedback as much as '50s and '60s 175s that have graced the shop while in for setups and adjustments.

What's this all mean? It's a killer box, for sure. There's a reason these guitars are hunted-down by jazz cats and blues-hounds alike -- they're good. The pickups have the cleaner/brighter late-'60s humbucker sound that suits traditional styles better, too, as compared to a lot of modern ES-175 interpretations with dark/woody pickups. Said dark/woodies always feel to me like someone has wrapped the guitar in a comforter and/or deprived it of tonal nutrition until the instrument's willpower collapses...

That aside, this thing is almost entirely original, quite clean, and has an original hard case to boot. When I replaced the (damaged) original bridge, it still had the "bridge goes here" factory sticker on the top. It only needed minor work and said new bridge to get it playing on-spec and fast.

The consignor/owner of this guitar looked-up all of its information and found that it was made in the Terada plant and dates to early '77.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, new ground wire from the tailpiece to the harness (old one was damaged), cleaning, new rosewood bridge install, and a setup.

Setup notes: the neck is straight and the truss rod works, action is a perfect 1/16" overall with room to adjust at the bridge, and strings are 52w-11 gauges with a wound G-string. The wound G is necessary as both this new bridge and the original are compensated for a traditional wound G set. It will need to be swapped-out if one desires a more "rocker" unwound G stringing.

Scale length: 24 3/4"

Nut width: 1 11/16"

String spacing at nut: 1 3/8"

String spacing at bridge: 2"

Body length: 20 1/8"

Lower bout width: 15 7/8"

Waist width: 9 1/8"

Upper bout width: 11 1/4"

Side depth at endpin: 3 3/8"

Top wood: ply maple

Back/sides wood: ply maple

Neck wood: mahogany

Bracing type: tonebar

Fretboard: rosewood

Bridge: rosewood, adjustable

Neck feel: slim C-shape, ~12" board radius

Condition notes: quite clean with only minor use-wear throughout in small scratching and tiny nicks here and there. Everything is original to the guitar save the new bridge and new ground wire to the tailpiece. The tuners look original, too, but it looks like a different set may have been on the guitar at some point as there are filled extra holes on the back of the headstock.

It comes with: its original hard case in good order.