2617 AV from 1977 – awakened after 35 years in the case

Sometimes it still happens: You find a vintage guitar in almost pristine condition at a reasonable price – no mods, no damages, everything perfect.

This is what happended to me last monday. On sunday evening I saw the guitar in a local free classifieds site. Good price and even negotiable. Only local pickup – but the seller’s place is just about 130 km from my home.

After only a (very 😉 ) short hesitation, I sent the seller an offer. Monday morning I received his answer: Accepted 🙂

So after a phone call, I jumped in my car and headed to his address.
God bless the German Autobahn 😉

After arriving and a very friendly welome – when I took the guitar out of it’s case it really looked great with breathtaking wood grain. Except some very small dings & dongs on the back and the lower edge, the beauty is in perfect condition for a 43 year old guitar. Everything genuine and ok. No mods! No binding issues, the frets have definitely 100% life and the gold plating also is in very good condition execpt a small spot on the harmonica bridge – one of the few evidences it has been played at all.

Ok, what do we have here:
A model 2617 built in July 1977. Pickups are already Flying Fingers Super 80s (non splitable), but the bridge is still the early harmonica bridge and the tailpiece is the one-piece-cloud one.

So it’s also what I call the second version after the (partially) pre-serial version with the Ibanez Script Logo Super 70s pickups.

Tuners are Ibanez Velve tuners with kidney handles. The body wood is ash and the 3-piece neck is made of maple. Fingerboard is ebony.

What makes these guitars so unique is the Germany Carving of the body as it also can be seen on it’s sister model 2680 in the last picture. After switching from the 70s model numbers to the later naming convention, the 2617 had a short life as AR-250 and was seen the last time in a 1980 catalog.