'81 Thunder 1A ~MODIFIED~ (UK)

Not sure if there is much point in putting this up on here, because the seller really wants to do a 'Pick Up Only'.

Anyway THIS is the guitar in question, as you can see it's yet another Thunder with a trem grafted on.

Clearly the owner liked the original dodgy barrel saddle bridge even less than Barry does!

I personally don't agree with this kind of mod, but it's a much better job than the other T1 that was up a few weeks ago. Other than that it's a pretty clean guitar for the age, and the brass monkeys haven't mugged it for it's knobs.....yet!

A couple of questions,
The serial number is 1 090089, that is the 89th guitar from Sept. 1981, correct? It seems to be a very low number, does anyone know approximately which month in 1981 production started?

And does anybody recognise that trem, it's non of the usual suspects I can think of? The saddles remind me something else but for the life of me, I cannot place it. Any idea's?

DAN.

DuoFuzz wrote:...yet another Thunder with a trem grafted on...but it's a much better job than the other T1 that was up a few weeks ago.

Yeah, It does look better...I suppose. At least black works better than that awful chrome one. And (I think) it's installed straight! But why do you even need a trem on this thing?!

The serial number is 1 090089, that is the 89th guitar from Sept. 1981, correct? It seems to be a very low number, does anyone know approximately which month in 1981 production started?

Dunno about that, but at the risk of being a wee bit off topic, here's something that'll get yer head to scratchin'. I just checked my T1's serial number and it's a completely different format! My neck plate reads:

which I'm interpreting to mean the 40th guitar produced in December 1981.

As I've said before in a few posts (probably over in the GG forum) I believe that '81 was a "lumpy", uneven year for Mats. I have the feeling that some models were rushed to production, hence the lousy bridge design on the Thunders, and Avengers (probably others too, including bass guitars). Looks like they couldn't get their act together on the numbering either?!

Hi Barry.

Interesting, your number reminds me of the early '80s Ibanez numbering system. The pre-fix letter on those was a code for the month but it went A=January, B=February, C=March etc. This was followed by one or two numbers designating the year.

If this is the case for your guitar, it could be the 40th guitar from April 1981! Cool .

DAN.

DuoFuzz wrote:...it could be the 40th guitar from April 1981!

I hadn't thought of that Dan, but the more I think about it you may be right.
My casual observation tells me that Mats did make corrections to things such as that bridge within the '81 year: witness a few items on fleaBay recently and other pix. So, April would seem to make better sense rather than December since later production models presumably would have been "fixed". Mine is obviously an earlier version, if not one of the first off the line.

That sounds good, huh? Now consider this: my Vantage Avenger AV325 has a serial of 1081092. The numbering system is more in line with the eBay one...August '81 #1,092...but, it has the same stupid bridge! So when did they fix it?!