Tama acoustic guitars were made from 1974-1979 at the Tama Drum factory. Hoshino Gakki also had semi acoustic, nylon and steel stringed acoustic guitars manufactured under the Ibanez name.
#Ibanez headstock history series
Hoshino Gakki's relationship with Frank Zappa's former guitarist Steve Vai resulted in the introduction of the Ibanez JEM and the Ibanez Universe models and after the earlier successes of the Roadstar and Iceman models in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Hoshino Gakki entered the superstrat market with the RG series which were a lower priced version of the Ibanez JEM model. The late 1980s and early 1990s were an important period for the Ibanez brand. The company has produced its own guitar designs ever since. After the lawsuit period Hoshino Gakki introduced Ibanez models that were not copies of the Gibson or Fender designs such as the Iceman and Ibanez Roadstar.
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This resulted in the so called Ibanez lawsuit period. In the 1970s Japanese guitar makers started to mainly copy American guitar designs and Ibanez branded copies of Gibson, Fender, Dan Armstrong and Rickenbacker models started to appear. Hoshino Gakki used the Teisco and FujiGen Gakki guitar factories to manufacture Ibanez guitars after they stopped manufacturing their own guitars in 1966 and after the Teisco guitar factory closed down in 1969/1970 Hoshino Gakki used the FujiGen Gakki guitar factory to make most Ibanez guitars. Japanese guitar makers in the 1960s were mostly copying European guitar designs and some of the late 1960s Ibanez designs were similar to Hagström and EKO guitar designs. The modern era of Ibanez guitars began in 1957 and the late 1950s and 1960s Ibanez catalogues show guitars with some wild looking designs. When the Spanish workshop was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and the original guitars became unavailable (and very much sought after because of their excellent quality), Hoshino Gakki bought the Ibanez brand name rights and started making Spanish and acoustic guitars on their own, first as "Ibanez Salvador", and later as "Ibanez".
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While the company had little presence in the Western world until the mid-1960s, the Ibanez name dates back to 1929 when Hoshino Gakki began importing Salvador Ibáñez. In 1935, they began manufacturing their own stringed instruments. The Hoshino Gakki company began in 1908 as the musical instrument sales division of the Hoshino Shoten bookstore company. 2.1.1 Production Signature Models (Past & Present).