Guitar Story #5: Ibanez ST-55
Details
- Guitar: Ibanez ST-55 (may have been a ST-50)
- Year Purchased: 1981
- Price Paid: $250.00 ($711.80 in 2021 dollars)
- Notes: Used Made in Japan
Living in a tiny town in the 1980s greatly limited my access to guitar shops. Every now and again my friends and I would take road trips to bigger cities to poke around in music stores and pawn shops. I had accumulated a little cash from playing some shows/parties and it was burning a guitar-sized hole in my pocket. My bandmates and I decided to jet down to Lansing, MI which was about 3 hours away.
I found a sweet, jet black Ibanez ST-55 in a shop called Wilcox Trading Post (a shop I would come to live only a few blocks from in a few short years). Willcox was a great junk shop with a dedicated music room and we spent quite a lot of time rummaging through things there that day. The Ibanez had a 250.00 tag on it and It came with the cool green velvet plush lined hard case. It felt great and played really well so it came home with me that day.
This was the first time I ever found myself with more than one guitar (I still had the Avenger). It was a really great guitar. Better than the Avenger. Unfortunately, I was ill-equipped to deal with the super long neck. I was not sophisticated or subtle enough to play it without bending the neck out of tune. I really loved the way it sounded and it felt so good strapped on but I was getting frustrated with the tuning issues I was having. I sold it a few weeks later to a guitar teacher at a Midland, MI music shop who absolutely LOVED it. I stuck the money back in the guitar kitty and kept on playing the Vantage.
By the late 70s Ibanez was cranking out some fantastic guitars and that ST-55 was one. The attention to detail was great, the pickups sounded fat and full. This was not a top of the line model and it retailed for a very reasonable price. I think guitars like this and Yamaha’s budget-minded guitars (lower SBG models) really lit a fire under the USA guitar companies asses who scrambled to come up with quality, affordable instruments.
These ST guitars still pop up on the vintage guitar market. I think anything under $500.00 is a deal. Great Gibson-like guitars with lots of attention to small details.