Grateful Dead Music Forum

Ive been intrigued by these guitars and how Jerry-like they are after seeing them on this site. Can anybody give me some cliffnotes on them? Or maybe direct me to a site which explains the differences between all the models? Most the sites I find are all pics and no info.

Which model musicians were the best?

http://www.noahjames.com/vintagepage/musician.html

http://www.ibanezcollectors.com/forum/

Dont forget....


this one is a steal:


http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200 ... =824&kw=lg



Woot!

At the starting price, that's a great deal. Especially if you were going to strip it down like TJ and get rid of all those dents and gouges. As a collector's piece, it's pretty worthless. The damage, while not severe, is substantial... and a lot of it is not original (speed knobs, etc). Perfect project guitar!

If you're looking for a great Jerry guitar, get this one! It even has the master tone control!

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200 ... =824&kw=lg


mk

that guitar is NEVER going to make it to the end of the auction. 1400 is too good a BIN price for that MC500, it will be gone by the end of the day.

jeffm725 wrote:that guitar is NEVER going to make it to the end of the auction. 1400 is too good a BIN price for that MC500, it will be gone by the end of the day.

I agree as I look around the studio at what could go! This axe is sweet! I hope I can find the dough!

Its gone! I hope someone on here got it!

Damn, that MC500 went for $1400? I gave mine away to my niece 2 years ago for Christmas, along with an amp, 4 sets of strings, a strap, and a cord. Mine had one case ding (some idiot closed the case on it) and a slight delam around the jack, but other than that, still very, very nice.

She doesn't ever play it, stopped taking lessons, but really couldn't play very well at all. I think she was around 11 at the time. She doesn't even know how to change the strings, so it probably still has the same strings as when I gave it to my brother to give to her. She wanted my Yamaha Silent Guitar, which may explain never getting a thank you or anything from her.

Oh well. (Never bonded with that guitar, but then I never did get it set up. Heavier than a Les Paul, too.)

not only did that go for 1400, but it was a low BIN,which is why it went within the first few hours of being put up. If he had no BIN on it I would guess that guitar would have gone for closer to 2k. Seller cost himself about 600, but he got what he wanted,and quickly, so if that is good for him, even better! Someone got a steal there!

The reason is that was a rare transition MC500 with the master tone. Those did not show up full time until the 1980 MC550.

One thing to keep in mind RE: Musicians (if you are someone who wants to chop one up for Jerry mods, like me and many others have done).
If it is a real minty version of specifically a 350, 400, 500 or 550, you may want to think twice about chopping it up. If they have all their original parts (especially the 3 EQ based models 400,500 and 550) and are in nice shape, they have real collector value these days which will be gone the minute you do mod # 1 (although you will have a fantastic guitar!). If you are going to chop one up, you are better suited to getting one that already has an issue or 2 (If it is a 400 or 500) or most have little issue chopping up any 100-200 or 300, because they were many more of them, and didnt have the initial value of the 400 and 500's.

I am pretty much persona non grata to a few people on the Ibanez collectors board because of what I did to my MC400 (hey its my axe,so F' em! plus it had a strat angled jack put into it before I acquired it so it wasnt original anyway!). I have a mint 79 MC500 with a working original EQ and everything that I will NEVER mod. Bought it in 99 for 320 dollars! Could get probably 6 times that 10 years later, but it aint going anywhere.

At one point my pre-amp had blown so I drove it over to Bensalem Pennsylvania and the tech installed a new one free of charge. It was still very minty at that point in time, though it was around 1987, I think. I got mine new, original owner, back in 1979 or so, I think.

My guitar playing was so mediocre back in the day (I could play Dead stuff by rote or pentatonic licks) that I never mastered flicking the EQ on like you should for taking leads. And I'd always get pissed off when my right hand would accidentally catch the pickup switch and throw me into treble when playing rhythm. Upon owning it I also found that I really only liked the two toggles both on normal phase ALL the time. So, really, it was too much guitar for me to handle. But it looked so cool when it was new, and I had a custom made speaker cabinet with double JBL 12" speakers with a fender head. At the time I wanted everything, so I had all sorts of FX boxes, and really just got in over my head rather than learning guitar a lot better. When you're in a band and also working a day job, and not to mention that you're in your early 20s, you just want to light out and look all around, go to bars, hang out, and really putting the time in to taking your playing to the level of the Dead, which you think is impossible BTW, doesn't happen. You can play a lot of songs, but there isn't the time to master a lot of songs.

Most fun I ever had, though. No regrets whatsoever.

Ive got
1 300
1 400
2 500s
All that I can say is they are the best sounding guitars I own
The stock PUs sound very similar to super IIs
The EQ (on the 400 and 500 only) allow you to fine tune the sound
The neck is a super slick neck thru
Quality thruout

If I were you I would start out with a lowere series model (,200,300)
to determine how you like the feel and overall quality.
Then move up to the higher series (400, 500,)
The only complaint I have heard about these guitars are the weight and sometimes the EQs can be noisey
HTH
T

alcorelectric wrote:Ive got
1 300
1 400
2 500s
All that I can say is they are the best sounding guitars I own
The stock PUs sound very similar to super IIs
The EQ (on the 400 and 500 only) allow you to fine tune the sound
The neck is a super slick neck thru
Quality thruout

If I were you I would start out with a lowere series model (,200,300)
to determine how you like the feel and overall quality.
Then move up to the higher series (400, 500,)
The only complaint I have heard about these guitars are the weight and sometimes the EQs can be noisey
HTH
T

How 'bout some pics of the guitar arsenal ?

I will have them up tonite or tomorrow.
I love showing off these gits
T