Maxitone, need help to ID my new find!

[pawnshopjunkie]

Just picked up this Vintage Maxitone, but can't find any info. It has 4 beautiful Ruby Red pickups and 4 switches, all in a row. Pearlized pick guard w/ 3 knobs. Tobacco Sunburst. Thanks! MS

[VintAxe]

Hey MS,

Looks to me like you have picked up a really nice guitar . I think it is a 1962-63 Ibanez. Below is a catalog excerpt from a 1962 Ibanez catalog. Unless I am mistaken, your guitar is almost exactly like the guitar on the right on the front row.

I have one of these early Ibanez instruments and mine is badged Montclair. Looks like they were being distributed under the Maxitone badge as well.

Looks like you've got a good eye for pawnshop guitars, keep huntin'. sb

[jedistar]

Well spotted sb. A modified version of this photo is on the home page of a 60s Ibanez site.
http://www.sixties-ibanez.com/

What I find fascinating is the brand name.

According to earlier posts on this site and elsewhere "maxitone" is a house brand of the New York importer "Bruno" like the Ventura brand...

This quote is from; http://www.angelfire.com/blues/rockinjo ... bruno.html

"My personal observation and experience tell me that Ventura guitars were sometimes feature by feature the same as the 60's to 70's Aria, Univox, Conrad, and many other "house brand" guitars that were reputedly made in the Japanese Aria and Matsumoku factories. They often share identical hardware and design, with the biggest difference being the name on the headstock.

I surmise that most, if not all, Ventura models were manufactured by the Aria / Matsumoku factories, who were also responsible for making other imported guitars such as: Aria, Aria Pro II, Diamond, Maxitone, Univox, Lyle, Conrad, Electra, Epiphone-Japan, Westone, Westbury, and many others."

Note this assumption that Ventura were made by Aria/Matsumoku may be incorrect. Your discovery may indicate that Bruno also rebadged Ibanez made instruments....

cool find!

www.jedistar.com

[mrblanche]

You may also want to check out the Ibanez Collectors web site. You might be shocked what some of them might give for that guitar!

[Big Beat]

In those days Ibanez didn't make their own electrics, they just distributed them under the Ibanez name. The same factory (Fujigen, I think) that made them for Ibanez also made them for Maxitone (C. Bruno Co.), and a few other distributors. Whoever ordered that model got to choose which name went on it

[Bassassin]

Just to clarify - Ibanez never have made their own guitars - it's only ever been a brand name, owned by the parent company, Hoshino Gakki. Most Ibanez guitars these days are made by Cort, in Korea, in the 1970s & 80s they were sourced from Fujigen Gakki, and prior to that, no-one's quite sure where they were made.

From the late 70s onward, it seems Hoshino started to commission specific designs which were sold only as Ibanez, but most of the 60s & 70s guitars were factory designs, sold to a variety of customers under numerous brands, of which Ibanez was just one.

Jon.

[mrblanche]

While you're right that Ibanez has always had most of their guitars made by factories they don't own, I believe they have operated a number of "custom shops," where new guitars are designed and low-volume guitars are built. There is one in Pennsylvania, in addition to the one at their home office. They are NOT just buying off-the-shelf guitars and putting their names on it, or just rebadging standard items. In fact, most of the factories they have used (Matsumoko (?) and Fugigen, for example) have ended up using Ibanez designs and rebadging them for other companies.

One of the oddities in collecting Ibanez guitars is the fairly high number of "non-catalog" guitars, sometimes transitional models using up the last of the stock of parts, customs made for shows, etc. There are even models that are in the catalogs, but of which there are no known examples "in the wild." For some reason, production just never happened, or some other thing interfered.

This is not to disagree with anything that you've said before, but rather to point out that the arguments about what is or isn't an Ibanez can get really confusing!

[Bassassin]

Fair enough about the Custom Shop models - but I think we can be fairly sure that the rebadged Maxitone (you get these badged as Antoria in the UK) isn't one of them! To be pedantic, the Ibby cutom shop operations are still owned by Hoshino, & Ibanez is still just a brand they use. But anyway.

I think the origin of some of the designs is still quite speculative - I doubt if, for example, the Custom Agent & Black Eagle designs were specifically owned by Ibanez/Hoshino, these appear as several other brands in different parts of the world, Antoria in the UK & Electa (not to be confused with SLM's Electra) in Australia are two I can think of.

There was a Greco Musician lookalike too - but I don't think there's enough clarity or recorded history to be able to say with any certainty if these designs originated from Hoshino or were just factory models. I'd be inclined to think the latter, but that's just because it makes more sense to my way of thinking. I do think this was how they operated in the early days, through the copy era & at the beginning of the introduction of original designs - but this certainly hasn't been the case for the better part of 3 decades.

I'm not aware of any known connection between Ibanez & Matsumoku - all of the 70s output that I've seen does appear to be Fujigen.

I think the Ibanez "oddities" are one of the things that makes the brand so fascinating - over on ICW, a bolt-neck CA model has appeared, and also a set-neck 2388 Ricky guitar copy - neither of these have ever been seen before & don't appear in any known catalogue.

Jon.