Raven Bass - (Ibanez 2366 lookalike) UPDATE INFO WITH PIC

Gear acquisition is stirring my soul again..and I found an interesting one.

Guitar: late 60's or so "Raven" bass. Plain Jane copy of Fender's Jazz bass. Single pup. Nice one-piece maple neck, rosewood fretboard. Sunburst tobacco finish on one-piece mahogany body. Bolt on neck. Back plate reads "Made in Japan" ... very similar to the MIJ inscription on the plate bolted to my 1982 Westone x70. To me, it looks like an early example of a Japanese stuff that flooded the market in the late 60's. Dirty and missing a few bits, but essentially undamaged. Remarkable condition actually. The build quality fit and finish is good. The hardware is definitely not high end.

Its a massive instrument. As in heavy - far heavier than my BC Rich.

History: Current owner has essentially stored it for 11 years. The first owner - since '69 or '70.

Markings: Other than MIJ on the neck plate, the word "Raven" appears on the headstock.

+++++++++++++++

There are 'net rumours that claim lineage ties to either factory for MIJ "Raven" brand guitars (not to be confused with the Washburn Raven) and basses sold in Canada. Its f/s in the local buy and sell (Kijiji Winnipeg) for $150. The owner claims its late 60's, early 70's model. No serial number.
++++++++++++++


Can anyone shed any light on the birthplace factory of this brand?

Frenchy, Corsair, Hendrik, Barry, boutjp97, Dan, grogg, Steve - c'mon guys.

Thanks in advance,
Ian



This is a pic from the vendor.

Hi Ian,

This is all that I know so far on this brand. From the offerings that I have seen in the last few years, the Raven brand is more concentrated in Ontario, Can... I do come across some in Quebec but never any first owners... I would assume this is a Ontario distributor brand name. I came across a semi hollow bass indentical to Aria's offering of the time period but missed out on the purchase... This bass is also a little confusing.... It has the small tuners and also that TRC that I was only able to find on "Pan" Basses and several Ibanez bass like model 2366B... The Brand Raven could have came from many different sources since some had a plastic badge on the headstock, where others had inlays and some had printed logos.... Hard to pin point these house brands...

Sorry, no help really from my part for the origin...

On the 2nd topic: GAS....

If this is an ealy Fujigen Gakki (Ibanez) it's a great deal at that price and it will play really great!.... I would jump on it if you do not have a P-bass in your arsenal...

My 2 cents...

P.

Thanks Pierre.

Good info wrt to size of the tuners. At minimum I can track down the models you refer to and do a rudimentary comparison. The bass that I found has the logo as inlay IIRC.

The GAS gods will be appeased.. I looked at it yesterday (it plays great), and have arranged to buy it tomorrow. I have to sell my BC Rich to make some room.


All the best,
Ian

P.S. Some quick sleuthing results reveal that the 1976 Ibanez 2366B (below) has the same headstock, logo placement, same MIJ backplate, mounts for chrome bridge cover, sunburst effect details, headstock hardware (except the 2366B tuners are larger), etc.








This last pic is a 2366f, to show the chrome bridge covers. The pic above shows the mount screws, no cover.
The Raven has those mounts as well.

The GAS gods will be appeased.. I looked at it yesterday (it plays great), and have arranged to buy it tomorrow. I have to sell my BC Rich to make some room.

You wont regret it!

I also have a B.C. Rich for sale at the moment... I bought it for the look and never played with it...

Congrats on the new bass!

Pierre

The earlier 70's Ibanez bass had the small tuners...

I don't play or own any basses so I'm as much help to you as teats on a bull.
Luckily, we have Pierre around, eh?
She's real purty Ian!

Well, all of you make a terrific resource.
Thanks again! Will post pics when I bring it home.

Awww, you decided to buy it before I could come in here and sell you on it! I've already sold one Ian on a bass (a 1984 Electra-Westone Phoenix X635 in Pearl White), a second would have been funny.

You could try to sell me on "Zero Wing" as a compromise. Then all your base.... oh well, you get the idea.

You'd have to be a pretty big fan of old video games to like Zero Wing. Beyond the infamously poor translation, anyway.

Hi Ian,

I did some more verification. I had done some research 3 to 4 years ago on Raven, my file shows that the brand is from Great West Dist. They had 4 offices across Canada (Montreal, T.O., Winnipeg and B.C.) They carried and distributed Pearl guitars, Mann and Raven... Since some of the Mann from the 70's are clearly Fujigen (Ibanez) I would consider this a good sign...

I have a Raven catalogue somewhere from the 70's... will try to find it...

P.

Pierre,

That would be HIGHLY appreciated. Great information - you are a researcher at heart. Busy day so far - I sold and delivered the BC Rich bass at 9:00 am, drove about 3 miles, and bought the Raven at 9:08. I brought her (the Raven) home - then had to rush off to work... but I will attack it this evening.

The putative link to Fujigen is really interesting to me.

This bass is missing a few things - thumb rest (plastic black brick that screws to the pick guard), the chrome pup cover, and the chrome bridge cover. I am keeping my eyes open for those parts.

Other than that, its a pretty sweet little bass - playability is great, way easier than the BC Rich.

Edit: This next paragraph was pulled off "guitars for beginners", seems to confirm your research:

That was a tough one bear with me here, here's a little bit of info about the Raven guitar, the Mann Guitar and the Raven Guitar were as far as I know made in Japan in the same place some were labeled Mann some were labeled Raven and imported to Canada there's a question mark on whether Matsumoku made them and there is also a rumour that Ibanez were behind them but this is hard to confirm apparently the early ones were awesome but the quality dipped a bit in the later models. I've put a load of Reviews on for the Mann guitar/Raven Guitar one of the reviewers collects these and has both Ravens and Manns,

Mann and Raven Guitars were labeled and imported to Canada by "Great West Musical Imports" of Vancouver BC in the 70's and 80's. There were a huge success and these low cost but fair to good quality Guitars are still seen in the marketplace regularly today.


Edit 2: This old catalogue is online, but I will need to register to see it. Useful, in that it mentions Great West as the Raven distributor. OK, back to work.

http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_japanese_raven.htm



Warrn,

Watching the intro to Zero Wing reminded me of the 80's Sega Genesis stuff, which required imaginative input from the player - itself not a bad thing.

So far, I'm pleased with my new acquisition, its clearly made to a higher standard than the BC Rich (scarf neck join, etc).

Thanks for posting your findings Ian... Never found that info in the past...

Here is the catalogue that I found years ago online... I do not remember were it came from...









P.

Follow up - I've had this bass for a week and I am loving it. It plays great with new Rotosound swing bass strings (stainless). The youngest offspring and I are eyeballing some new bass amps ("Dad, we really need a decent bass amp"), and really, who can argue with that logic? So far I'm cottoning on to the Fender Rumble 100 with 2 x 10" speakers. No pics of the Raven yet, too much fun just to play it.

Warrn and Frenchy - what bass amps do you favour?

You can't go wrong with a Hartke. I have a 350w Hartke 3500 hooked to a big 300w Hartke MX115 cabinet. I really need a 410 to go with it, but it's solid and reliable and constantly threatens to shake my house down (I'm thinking it might be a bit easier to handle if I split the signal between two cabinets, but I'm not an amp expert).

I'd love to hear more about Ravens.

I have two, a fretless and a fretted. They are identical to the one pictured except that they have two pickups.

On both of them, the neck pickup went dead.

I got the first one 2nd hand in 1976 and the other at a local guitar shop about 8 years ago.

Nice necks, heavy bodies and the one pickup really puts out!

Hey - good to hear from you!

Are you in Canada somewhere?

How about putting up a couple of pictures?? My bass is still going strong, but the pots are scratchy, gotta fix that.

Ian

I'm in Vancouver.

My fretless has been stripped and carved and painted.

The fretted is pretty well stock except for a replaced fret marker. I used an old driver's licence. One tuning peg handle broke off so I got a watch repair man to modify a brass clock winder for that one peg.

My post pics tomorrow.

That would be great.

I should also get round to posting some detailed pics of my Raven bass. This thread has already a great source of info on Raven stuff imported from Great West Distributing.

In the past year, I have found a number of other brands with this connection, including Mann. A couple of nice tube amps in the 20 watt range have passed through auctions in Kijiji (Winnipeg) with the brand "Mann", and were reputed to be made for Great West by either Garnet (the same local builder as equipped The Guess Who) or Traynor (out of Toronto). I am not sure of this, just relaying the stuff I've heard in local shops. (EDIT: I found some evidence (on the site below) that Mann was indeed connected to Garnet. If anyone can find one of these for sale, you would have yourself a really nice kicking amp for not a lot of $$).

"Garnet amps" per se are still represented by a couple of websites... here is one:

http://www.garnetamps.com/

...their inventor was a guy named Gar Gilles, another Winnipeg lad. Interesting - I learned that some of his original amps parts (eg, mushroom knobs) were sourced from Japan. Garnet's "Herzog" amp circuit and amp of the same model name were responsible for the distinctive "American Woman" tone heard on the lead of that song, as played by R. Bachman. A book on how these amps were put together is published and available here:

http://www.garnetamps.com/book.htm

Kind of a cool piece of Canadian music history. Many old Garnet amps are still floating around Winnipeg (and still functioning).

Ian

My Raven fretted bass:



My Raven fretless (with an Ibanez-made "JWalkers" branded guitar)




The neck of the fretted (see the driver's licence fret marker?)



Carved body of the fretless (it was the 1970s okay? forgive me)




My Raven (made by Garnet) amp

Nice!!!

I love those basses, and the AMP!!!

Thanks.

Yup, like that carved retro look. Very nice. Always wanted an Aria dragon carved strat just for its quirkiness but never found one. Anyone get to play one?

I think Jesper's either got one, or has access to one? Can't imagine it being too much different to a Strat; maybe a bit heavier?

Thought you 'Ravens' might want to hover over this.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Raven-MIJ-Les-Paul-Recording-Late-70s-Bolt-Neck-/310298989588?pt=Guitar&hash=item483f42d414

That's a tasty dish - actually a very beautiful instrument indeed - somehow it made its way down to California. I cannot believe the starting price on it however. These Japanese LP clones are steadily climbing in price, their factory genetics notwithstanding. The pickups and switches are unique, pretty funky.

EDIT: ??? Looking again the backing wood looks like the wrong grain for mahogany - much more like walnut, ash or even cherry. Whatever it is, it is nicely constructed - quite a sleeper.

The RAVEN headstock insignia is very similar to that appearing on my bass. That bass sports a MOP (or MO toilet) inlay - I've heard that the insignia also appeared on instruments as a sticker. Another similarity is the neck plate - very plain with "Made in Japan" along the bottom edge.

This guitar looks superficially similar to my GRANADA LP - the bolt-on neck is virtually identical, bound the same way, same inlay type. In some reading I did on the GARNET site yesterday, I found out that the MIJ Granada stuff has another link to Winnipeg. Interestingly, Mr. Garnet Gilles made amps in his Winnipeg shop with the "Granada" stencil, in addition to Gibson (USA) amps, Simpson-Sears stuff, etc. Garnet's shop cranked out around 30 "stencil brands" in all. Lots of these no-name beauties are circulating around the Northern Prairies.

Lots of Garnet "Stencil" brands in BC too.

Mine is labeled "Raven."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvJljlr_8g0