Greco Mirage

I've been good for a long while, trying REALLY hard not to buy another guitar.

It doesn't help when I live close to Ochanomizu, which is a guitar junkie's paradise. I was THIS close to buying (another) Gibson, the Buckethead signature no less. It looks and sounds great. I love a nice ebony fingerboard. The arcade kill switches are fun, but just one button would have been better I think.

I was a little saddened when I saw a Greco Mirage I tried a week earlier had already been bought. The Mirage has the same shape as the Ibanez Iceman. Not a copy, but from what I've read Greco shared the design with Ibanez. Ibanez had worldwide rights, while the Greco version was only sold in Japan.

While the latter day Icemans, both Ibanez and Greco were made in Korea, the late 70's models were made in Japan. With that being the case, those models in great condition are pretty hard to come by.

Two words.. Yahoo Auctions.

Ok, I was a little drunk on my cans of Chu-hi but after work on Wednesday, I put my winning bid on my very own 70's Greco Mirage. I was feeling extremely guilty, but pretty elated as well.

The guy was only in Saitama, but as usual too scared to allow me to pickup (and save a bit of money) on the 1,470 yen delivery, and 420 yen bank transfer.

I was surprised that the courier delivered on a Sunday, so at about 10:00 I got the knock on the door. The case was only covered in bubble-wrap. With the unusual shape, I'm glad that the guitar came with the original form-fitting hard case too.

Opening the case for the first time I knew straight away that I made the right (albeit, drunk) decision to make that bid. The guitar looked immaculate. No belt buckle rash, and very few other imperfections to speak of. The serial number began with "D78", "D" is the alphabetical month, April, and "78", is made in 1978. Very, very sweet.

The vintage look of the guitar reminded me strongly of my old Gibson L6-S. Acoustically the guitar was very resonant and plugging her in, she sounds very nice too. The fingerboard feels comfortable to move around on. Unlike that Gibson this feel great.

Speaking of the Gibson, on Yahoo Auctions I saw this..

This is a very old Ibanez OD-850 Overdrive stompbox that was thrown into the sale when I bought my very first electric guitar, that Gibson L6-S over 25 years ago. Through my crappy Roland amp back then it sounded horribly woolly and fuzzy. Through the high school PA system playing a cover of Cheap Trick's cover of "Don't Be Cruel" it was rockin'.

When I got rid of that Roland amp, I threw in that pedal as well. The guy on this auction wants 55,000 yen! I wish I knew back then, like my long gone L6-S of what worth it would be now.