Factory Run #2 – Ibanez Pia77Bon2
Limited to 100 units globally through Hoshino/Ibanez, executed in collaboration with Beth Kearney and inspired by Mike Mesker’s pickup design with Dimarzio for the Utopia pickups (which was inspired by a Versace design, etc. etc. :-)), these are gilded in 24k gold leaf and hand painted in an elaborate filigree pattern on the front and back. The bodies are sent to us here in Colorado, prepped, gilded, painted and finished in-house before being sent back to the factory for final assembly.
We made a few variants (palladium on black, 24k gold on white, etc.) but Steve was partial to the gold on black ones – which I think was a given 🙂 I generally don’t prefer gold hardware on a guitar, but these things are so over the top that I love it. There were also a couple of variants as far as the amount of detail in the hand painting of the filigree – Steve liked the more detailed and elaborate ones, which I can’t argue – the first ones (like in the display case in the pictures as well as the one Steve played in the ‘Dancing’ video and had at the Dimarzio photo-shoot) were cool, but the extra hours are definitely worth it (also when you get to see them all together you can see the little changes that Beth does in each one to make them unique)
They will only be available through Ibanez dealers globally. I don’t know how the distribution or volume is getting allocated…we are just trying to make them as nice as we possibly can and get ’em back to the factory so they can get out to dealers this fall/winter.