[holyfrank]

Hi guys! I have this great Universe and the metal plate is "strange" ,not a normal Universe one.
Someone of you has the same type of it? take a look at the pictures please.
U can tell me your opinions? thanks a lot!! have a nice days!!!

 

[holyfrank]

anyone? tks

 

[Kyle am I]

This is an area I know virtually nothing about

however, the serial number makes no sense from what I’ve seen from Ibanez. The early vai prototypes were JEM neck plates, and the early universe ones are accounted for with very low numbers.

this guitar seems to be a normal production green dot, and not an early one as it’s not an Edge 7 but a Lo Pro bridge.

however, of course as I said before, I know nothing about the unknown unknowns about the history and abnormalities of these square heel plates as they’re faaaar before my time, but I hope this at the very least wasn’t a waste of your time

 

[Viper Pilot]

There are examples of this style of plate on UV7BKs towards the very end of the run. These are typically identified by solid colored knobs instead of green painted white ones.

The font seems to match, but there is no record that shows the serial starting with "G". The ones I have seen pictures of start with a few differnet letters, but not G. The font looks like the others, however, so this may give credence to the thinking that Fujigen was grabbing whatever they could to get the guitars out before the AANJ arrived.

I would email Rich at Ibanez Rules and get his thoughts. I am leaning toward it being legit.

Hope this helps