This one will probably spark a good bit of contorversy. I have been through all my documentation and there is very little mention of Conrad guitars, but purely by accident I noticed a peculiar similarity with the Ibanez Lucite copy that couldn't be ignored. Save for the shape of the headstock the two guitars are identical in construction! All the books I have that cover the Ibanez Japanese years indicate Hoshino primarily focused on acoustic guitar production and farmed out much of the electric production to other companies such as Fujigen Gakki, Kasuga, Chu Sin Gakki, and "others". I do know that at one point during the 70's Arai/Matsumoku was one of the largest guitar manufacturers in the world and did contract work for a myriad of re-brand imports and other distributors. Could this be one of the "others"?

On page 202 of "Electric Guitars: The Illustrated Encyclopedia" there is an excellent picture of the Ibanez version of this guitar. Pay particular attention to the stop-bar (screw-down, not slip-on) and even moreso the tiny dot position markers. As far as I know, only Westones of the same period sported the mini dots. I'm beginning to wonder who was scratching who's back during this period! It would be interesting to compare the router marks in the control cavities of the two guitars as this would be an almost foolproof way of determining whether or not the guitars were produced in the same plant! The Conrad IMO plays as well or better than the Ampeg it mimics and I personally prefer the stop-bar over the wrapover "Badass" style bridge. This baby is not going anywhere!

Thanks goes to Jill and "he said" of Chicago! The Conrad has found a good home!

Well, actually it now has a new good home, and the new owner is quite happy with it.