RG550 mongrel?

[Brambram]

I saw this ad on a dutch site for a claimed-to-be 1987 RG550 which I believe it isn't:
[Edit:ad is gone]

Text is in dutch, but if you look at the pics:
Looks like a RG550, but since it's DY, it shouldn't have a rosewood fb and non-matching headstock, right? So the neck is probably from a RG550 BK. The serial looks ok, so at least the neck's from 1987, but about the body (and here's my question): when did Ibanez start labeling their pickups? I thought not until like 1989-1990. So if he didn't replace those pickups (non-labeled V's and S1 for labeled V's and S1), the body is probably from a post-1989 RG550? Also the labels don't look like the ones I know for V1 and V2 pickups, any thoughts/facts about that?

[brianxtr]

those pickups are normal.i had them once in a guitar i had.so thats nothing strainge but the neck is.its put 2 guitars together.thats for sure.but there was a roadster yellow with a dark fretboard but that one is from 1986.so im not 100% sure its a lot of parts together or something else.but for 95% not original.i dont want it and this is the 3th time its for sale.
seen it before.

[IbanezDaemon]

Pickups on an '87 model would have no logos on them so that's a 1990 onwards body IMO.

[gpenguins]

The link is sending me an ad for a Starfield, so I can't see the 550. While it's likely from your description that the neck has been replaced, I think the word "mongrel" sounds negative - I'm not sure if you meant it negatively - but this guitar is likely still good quality.

I've had and still have tons of late 80s to mid 90s Japanese Ibanez guitars, and other than my original RG550DY, not too many have the original necks - whether I swapped them because I wanted a sharktooth neck on a DY or just got the parts or whatever the case. However, they are still extremely high quality, well playing guitars. Again, I can't see the actual ad, but I'm assuming from your post that this has just had the neck replaced with a similar era rosewood board 550/560/570 neck. So, if that's the case, then yeah, this is a guitar made from parts, but high quality parts that I'd put up against most of the Ibanez products on the market today. So, if you can live with the rosewood and its in good shape, then I'd say it's a cool guitar.

[Brambram]

Originally Posted by gpenguins

The link is sending me an ad for a Starfield, so I can't see the 550. While it's likely from your description that the neck has been replaced, I think the word "mongrel" sounds negative - I'm not sure if you meant it negatively - but this guitar is likely still good quality.

It indeed appears that the RG550 ad is gone and/or replaced for the Starfield one (great guitar actually, own one just like it myself ). Funnily enough yet another modified guitar without it being mentioned in the ad and that was actually my point with saying 'mongrel': it probably is a great guitar and I wasn't too worried about that, but if you sell a guitar as a (completely original) 1987 RG550DY when it's actually a 1987 RG550BK neck on a (assumed-to-be post-1989) RG550DY body, I consider that 'cheating'. Well, cheating is common practice on those kinda sites, at least he wasn't selling some Chinese POS as an original Ibanez JEM, but it couldn't hurt mentioning any heavy modifications in your ads


Which leaves the IBZ V1 issue: I'm only aware of the the blank ones (probably 1987-1988 ) and the ones labeled like this:


The ones in the guitar in the ad were labeled, but not like the one showed above, they just said 'IBZ V1' in a simple font. Does anybody have a clue about when they started using the 'simple' label and when they started using the V1 'logo' (probably around 1989)?