Sold & Scarred

Ibanez 540PII

 Date Spotted: May 17, 2002

Owner: nuno

This pristine beauty is owned and loved by my Ibanez buddy Nuno who lives in Italy. Suffice to say that he adores 80s Ibanez and luminous paint. Also featured in his nice collection from the period are a Maxxas, a Radius and a 550 Roadstar, among many others. Here's his description:

"Paid $600, she came in good shape, but with a thick layer of rust on the Edge's saddles. The rest was in pretty good condition, overall. Basswood body, maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, 22 medium-size frets, Edge tremolo, an IBZ F3 humbucker at the bridge and an IBZ C2 single at the neck, a 3-way switch and just the volume knob. Simple and straight, as I like. The F3 humbucker is incredibly powerful, with plenty of harmonics, thick tone and juicy mid/treble freqs. The C2 is a vertical single, which means that it's absolutely devoid of any buzz while maintaining the typical twangy
single tone.
One of the coolest things about this lovely creature is that the body is about 15% smaller than any other standard guitar, which means that it's way lighter and easier to handle (yet still perfectly balanced), and better sized to the player's body. Too bad the standard sizes are so big... we're not all as tall as Vai & Gilbert!
Another cool thing is that the nut is 45mm, not the typical 43mm of many Ibanez models.
The '80s look she has is due basically to the reverse headstock, the pretty Japanese canary yellow finish and the sharktooth inlays."