Most of you will have probably read this but here it is anyway, straight from 'the horses mouth':


Ibanez Counterfeit Warning

Some auction websites currently have hundreds of instruments that look like Ibanez guitars and/or feature our trademarked Ibanez headstocks and logos. These guitars do not offer the feel, sound and quality people expect from Ibanez. In fact, most are not good guitars by any standard.

We here at Ibanez, our distributors, and our retailers have heard many complaints from consumers who have purchased these instruments thinking they were getting a great deal when actually, in the end, they were getting swindled.

If a guitar is up for auction or straight sale at a price that’s a fraction of what a new or used Ibanez guitar would typically sell for, chances are it’s not a genuine Ibanez. If the shipping cost is more than the price of the guitar, it’s probably not a genuine Ibanez.

The best protection against being cheated or disappointed is to buy your new or used Ibanez guitars and basses from an authorized Ibanez retailer. Please contact the distributor for your country that’s listed on the Ibanez website to find the nearest Ibanez authorized retailer.

One final but very important note: Because of the damages and hardship that illegal merchandise cause at so many levels, counterfeiting is a serious crime. By regional statutes, in the most countries, it’s not only a felony to sell counterfeit merchandise, it’s a felony even to own it.
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Counterfeiting will always happen, no matter what product. No company will ever stop it and why would they anyway? It is probably affecting a small fraction of their sales, it would cost them more to do anything about it.

Like Ibanez have stated, if its Ibanez you want, buy from IBANEZ or their authorized dealers. Not ****, not back street shops or local newspapers.
But can everybody afford to buy NEW???????? ................NO!
So these guys go to the likes of **** etc, or even better, make their own or get someone to make one for them.

If you are 'trawling' thru **** and the likes, and you happen to come across a Brand New 7v** for £0.99p Buy-it-Now. Unless you are looking for a cheap copy, dont even bother to open the page.
You already know where it is from and you already know what it will ressemble (probably a LesPaul lol)

I have no doubt in saying that 99.9% of buyers on this website/forum know an Ibanez guitar when they see one. Unlike the buyers of the chinese copies. But!!!, you dont see complaints that often either i.e that the guitar is fake or wrong etc etc etc
Personally, i dont like the ch*nese copies and I dont even bother to look anymore. But some buyers have and probably will buy a 'Jem7v copy' cos thats what their 'budding Stevie Vai' son/daughter wanted as a first guitar. To an untrained eye they bought a white guitar with flowers and some gold stuff on, job done!!
Not everyone lacking knowledge about a product will consult forums for advise. But there again, not everybody wants 'top dog' stuff all the time. Sometimes 2nd best does passify.
Who would buy an IBANEZ 7VWH (£1399.00) or a Jem555 (£699.00) as a starter guitar anyway??? For it to be thrown on a shelf after a passing phase has elapsed.

To all you guys and gals that make or customise your own guitars (or other peoples), carry on what you're doing, post the pics and ignore the jibes.
To the others that dont like customised guitars, dont click on the pages (it will only upset you )........ Simple isnt it?

Thought:
I bet there is no-one that doesnt own a counterfeit item......ie a copied dvd/cd (s), watches, clothes, sports gear etc etc..........Why should guitars be any different???????????

It seems to me that certain members of this forum post on here to criticise, name call and 'pull down' other members. Im sure this is clearly not what this forum is meant for.
Please stop with the back-biting or piss off to another forum!!!!!

They could have given advice to buyers regarding what to ask for, like pictures of the headstock back, serial number, closeups, anything to scare off the seller or expose the crappy guitar.

Personally, I love seeing custom/self-built JEM copies. I don't care that someone says "here's my JEM" even if it isn't technically a real JEM.

(sorry for my english)

i love Ibanez Jems. i have a Ibanez Jem BFP. but... why i can't to build a custom Jem???. i think that there are not idiots here. all people here know to recognize a true ibanez jem. if i want build a guitar with the Jem shape... which is the problem???. many people build guitars with strato, les paul, etc... shapes.

apparently, there are people who take offence if i build my own jem. I dont understand it.

regards.

Beause if you build your own and write Ibanez and Jem on it, you've made a fake, because Ibanez DID NOT make it.

The people who make strat copies DO NOT write Fender or Strat on it.

Like I have always said, know what you are buying, that way you will know if you have a fake or the real thing. It's not just a case of only buy from a reputable dealer, which is ofcourse, a safe bet. Know what you are buying, look at the photos, the photos of fakes that I have seen just scream FAKE!!! at me, because I know what a real one is.

why not???. it is his JEM. it is not his IBANEZ, but it is his JEM.

i can to have a strato and dont be a Fender.

Of those who have a counterfiet dvd or cd, well, the product IS still the original material, just copied, it sounds the same.

Where as a fake guitar is of a crappy quality and looks pretty rediculous.

There is nothing wrong with making or customising your own guitar at all.

Just do not write Ibanez on it, if it isn't an Ibanez.

Do not write Jem on it, if it isn't an Ibanez Jem.

If you made it, put your own name on it, not another companies name.

Yeah exactly.

A copied cd or something isn't a fake, it's just illegal, the same thing but not authorised, but it's ''the real thing''.
Compare it with a stolen jem or something. It's the real thing but just illegal.

But these are just fake guitars using a name that is not theirs. If you tell someone that you're selling a jem but it's some crappy chinese thing it's just plain old swindle...

And you'de be surprised by number the people who can't tell a real jem from a fake...

like i said in other thread, these jem custom guitars are for me. i am not going to do businesses with them. i am not going to cheat anybody.
i didnt say that i will put a Ibanez logo on it. still, i dont know that i will do. but if i want put Ibanez on them, i will do. for me, the logo "Ibanez" is like a another guitar part. it does more nice the guitar.
I even think that it will love to Ibanez. I will be doing free publicity to Ibanez.

you can't compare my projects with the garbage chinese fakes. more parts of my proyects are Ibanez: bridges, nuts, tuners, pickups are dimarzios or ibanez, necks...... i think that a custom handmade guitar by luthier even may be better than a real Ibanez Jem.

regards.

You won't be doing very good publicity to Ibanez at all by writing Ibanez on it.

If you can make a guitar so good, then why not put your own name on it? Give yourself the publicity, you never know, you may even get requests and open up a custom shop, if you can make them so good.

For once we agree on something but....

If a guy wants to put an ibanez logo on his modified Ibanez, whether its a Jem , JS, PGM or WHY.........who says he cant?
An ibanez headstock looks pretty bare without an ibanez logo.

and

if a guitar is put together using entirely Ibanez parts, then made to look like a Jem why not sport the Jem logo?? Its the individuals choice.
Yes we all know it wont be an original Jem but who is it hurting to put the logo on there anyway?
It like sticking a GTI badge etc on a Golf 1100, its not hurting anyone. The car may look like a GTI but the driver will look ridiculous at the traffic lights.

I also agree that some replica guitars (especially the chinese fakes) do look ridiculous but that is my opinion (and obviously yours) but perhaps some of the replicas were made to someones liking. It is unfair to 'slate' another persons work especially on a public forum.

The chinese copies littering **** at the minute are obviously manufactured and listed to deceive the suspecting buyers. But there are also many variations of Ibanez (custom built) guitars being listed and sold with no intention of deceipt at all. You seem to be 'tarring them with the same brush'.

Im with you all the way with the chinese sellers, **** is getting a drag to browse but with reference to the custom guitars, there is no cause to tell another person how he or she, should or shouldnt make a guitar ( or anything else) of there liking.

If a custom guitar is made from genuine Ibanez parts, the the headstock will already have Ibanez on it. So it is then a custom Ibanez and not a fake.

But things do get rediculous when someone writes Jem on it, when it isnt a Jem.

If I made a custom Ibanez, I wouldn't want Jem on it, because it isn't from the Jem series. I'd perhaps call it an Ibanez Ant1981 series or something lol, cos I assembled it.

Just like with cars, yea they look silly with a GTi badge on it if it isnt a GTi.

But look at it this way. For example, someone takes a Golf and modifies it, makes it real fast, they don't badge it up as a GTi, as the person who done it is a company that goes by the name of Wolfsburg, so its a Wolfsburg edition, and boy, where those nice Golfs!

But if the headstock as been repainted (for whatever reason), then a logo will need to be applied. Yet people slate these sellers for reproducing the logos.


Yup

More of a Escort mk1 RS1600 or mk2 RS1800 man myself though...lol

I quite like my escorts too, got a beauty outside, apart from the dents where someone hit it when I was parked

Try finding one these days that ain't a fake!! Superb cars in their day.

Yea canny beat a 'scort.

But yea, for a custom Ibanez, I'd buy a neck with a black headstock and leave it like that.