The Ibanez AM73T electric guitar is not one you’ll easily find on a web archive. I saw it in a music store catalog in the early 2000’s and instantly fell in love with it. I loved the look more than anything- I didn’t know how different pickups and woods affected the sound of a guitar! I just thought it looked like Chuck Berry’s guitar and my love of early rock’n’roll made me gravitate to this model.

I bought this with my own money (tough to do when you’re a broke college kid) but this was my first good guitar. But, when I played it, I realized that I didn’t like the sound very much! That happens when you don’t really use it for the right purpose. I was more of a rhythm player trying to play this import guitar to sound like an early Beach Boys record. Oops!

So, I did what anyone who doesn’t know much about guitars would do: consult the internet! I decided that I needed real Gibson pickups. I didn’t know why, but I knew that’s what I needed. So I bought some Gibson Burstbucker pickups (the ones in those clear plastic cases) and had them installed in my Ibanez. I thought I was ready to rock!

Only I still realized that these pickups weren’t what I was looking for. Now I had pickups that were worth more than the guitar itself!

But I could never get rid of this guitar- I’ll always keep it, as I still think it looks perfect and is aging nicely, too. Now that I appreciate and can play using Gibson Burstbucker humbuckers better now, I can get more use out of the guitar, as well!

This guitar checked off the following on the Guitar Bucket List:

#29 – semi-hollow guitar
#52 – volute (on the back of the headstock)
#60 – Gibson BurstBucker pickups