1965 IBANEZ 425 HOLLOWBODY & 2 LAWSUIT PAULAS

This site is about the

Ibanez 425 hollowbody

model only

See my Lawsauit

Ibanez Les Paul copies

right

here!

My Lawsuit Black Beauty from the early 70s. Click to enlarge

How I found this guitar

is a weird story of a crazy coincidence.

I was very ill. Flu.

My wive and little kids were very ill, too.

It was hell. Everything hurt.

All the nasty stuff came out of every hole all the time.

I went to see my doctor and passed by a newsstand. I saw a mag called "dreams guitars" or "vintage dreams " or something ...

I decided NOT to buy it yet because I felt that sitting in the doctor`s waiting room with this "guitar porn mag" would be kind of embarrassing ...

So I came back to the newsstand later,

after I had seen the doctor and bought the mag.

The shop assistant was chatting with a customer. When this elderly lady saw the mag that I was buying she pointed at the Gretsch Chet Atkins guitar on the cover and said to me: "I still have two of these in my basement".

Get it? If I had bought the mag already before I went to the doctor I would have never met this lady!

This proves that beeing ill, shy and embarrassed can be a darn good thing!

And I said:

"What?"

and:

"Guitars like these? Do you wanna sell them?"

And so she invited me to follow her to her basement ( she could have been my mother, dude!) at once since she lived in the house right next to the newsstand.

There were two used vintage guitars

in that lady`s basement

and I bought them at once.

(Then after some days of research I went back and gave her some more money. )

The first one was this

Framus Missouri

Read more about it

here

The other one was this

Ibanez 425

hollowbody.

The thing was so consequently hollow that even the pickups and pots were missing.

beautiful sunburst and binding but strange how untidy these pickup holes were cut. click to enlarge

It took over 10 years and a lot of Ebay searches

to find the most important missing parts.

Vintage Ibanz catalog from 1965. click to enlarge.

There she is. One of the very few photos in the internet.click to enlarge

It was / is nearly impossible

to find information about this guitar.

I know of only four other guys who own an Ibanez 425.

They sent me fotos of their guitars so that I could see what exactly I have to search for ...

Thanks Hasy, Mike, Peter and Rashid!

Mike`s 425 has the same binding as mine... Hasy`s guitar (below) has a more sophisticated one... Click to enlarge

Hasy`s Ibanez 425. I have absolutely no hope as far as my missing pickguard is concerned. I`ll never find one. So I hope to find a big enough "Teisco" pickguard made from the same material and then cut this shape out of it. Click to enlarge

I bought this vintage "Teisco" pickguard in order to get the right electronics (2 volumes, one tone and the jack) Also the pickguard material is exactly what I need and the pickups are the right ones too ...except for the missing pickup rings.

It is really absolutely no problem to find these pickups if you search for "Teisco". But nearly impossible to find these extremely rare pickup rings! It took 10 years of Ebay search to find this one!

... it happened on my 48th birthday! What a miracle! ...and within one week ...

... I found two more of them! Pretty strange after 10 years without a trace. (The pickguard blank underneath is a vintage German NOS piece. Not the right stuff for my Ibanez restauration project.)

Beautiful details from Mike`s Ibanez 425. The rusty pickups and screws, the yellowed fretboard binding curving around the protruding fretend and the pickguard material. Click to enlarge

These knobs on Hasy`s Ibanez 425 can be found once in a while. Search for "Teisco". They exist in black, gold, amber, white ...

Mike`s Ibanez 425 is the only one I know of that is in perfect original state. These pot knobs here are the holy grail of knobs. Impossible to find. Click to enlarge

The original pot knobs on a Ibanez 430. Never saw them on ebay in more than 10 years. Unfortunately not my guitar and unfortunately this photo is so small

the doublecut sister Ibanez 482 has the same super.rare pickup rings.

The fretboard inlays are very thin and worn off. Dots at the 12th and blocks for the rest. Click to enlarge

Mike`s ... super clean fretboard inlays.I wonder what wood that fretboard is. It can`t be rosewood. Click to enlarge

Typical for vintage Ibanez guitars like mine: Some come without the logo ...

...some come with it. Hasy`s Ibanez has it.

Mike`s 425 has no logo either.

I found this vintage Ibanez neck in Canada und bought it just in order to get the Ibanez logo. Funny that the Inlay corresponds to the one of the 425 model.

the notorious "steel reinforced neck" sticker that almost every Japanese guitar from the 60s and early 70s has. No idea if this trussrod is adjustable

Hasy`s 425. The dots look like they were retrofitted... you can see that there were blocks first that were worn off. Then someone glued the dots on.

Hasy`s guitar again. It has a different pot layout and more beautiful binding than Mike`s and my Ibanez 425. Click to enlarge

Mike`s 425. Exactly like the one in the 1965 catalog! The only one worldwide I know of. Click to enlarge

Ibanez 425 "refinished". Peter from Australia sent me fotos of this very rare beast. Bridge and tuners and maybe the tailpiece seem not to be original. Pickguard missing. Same Knob positions like mine, same binding.

these super-super rare pickup rings are original and as rare as the pot knob rings... What was the logo on the headstock?

Rashid owns the 5th Ibanez 425 model I ever heard of. He sent me these details: The knob rings I am still desperately looking for. They are sooooooooo rare...

Who sells me three of these? Thanks Rashid!

Rashid`s Ibanez 425 guitar from 1965. Amazing! Nothing missing. Different bridge, no Ibanez logo, different pickguard material, different fretboard inlays ... like the Ibanez 420-T model.