currypowder Posted January 15, 2020 Share Posted January 15, 2020 Here's an interesting one that I just won. It's the Greco Mirage similar to the mid-70s Ibanez Artist 2663TC that Steve Miller played in the "Fly Like an Eagle" period. I'm pretty sure this one is from 1981, at least that's the only catalog that this model with these features showed up in. There is a similar one in the '78 catalog, but it has dots on the fretboard, not parallelograms. The seller blocked the serial number, so I won't know for sure until it gets here. I've owned a couple of Greco Mirages over the years, most notably the blue M1000 (Same model that Rick Nielsen played at Budokan). But the ones I've owned were of the standard double humbucker configuration. I decided to go for this one due to the unusual triple coil pickup with a 4 way knob switch. Apparently you can switch between: Single coil (coil closest to the neck) Humbucker (coils closest to the bridge) 3 coils in series (hot output) 3 coils in parallel. The Ibanez version is nearly the same, though I think they only made the official Iceman versions in the late 70s, they didn't carry over into the 80s. The only difference is the little cloud chrome thing under the tailpiece, the later Ibanez version doesn't have that, just the tailpiece. Here's some pics from the listing. Bonus is that it has the original form fitting Greco branded hard case. So many of these old Grecos get separated from their cases (sound familiar?). Finding a form fitting Iceman case for less than a few hundred $s is near impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Travis Posted January 15, 2020 Share Posted January 15, 2020 Badass! Nice score. Give us a full tone report when it comes in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gtrdaddy Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 Doooood! Sweet! Congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmatthes Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 I'm totally having YOU do my guitar safaris from now on! Always wanted one of those...or another cool old Iceman/Mirage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gtrdaddy Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 32 minutes ago, cmatthes said: I'm totally having YOU do my guitar safaris from now on! Always wanted one of those...or another cool old Iceman/Mirage. I’ve always loved old Grecos. I had a really cool neck-thru double cut in the late ‘70s-early ‘80s. Can’t recall the model name, the neck was a five-piece mahogany , purple heart, and maple strips, mahogany wings, maple cap, two humbuckers with splitting on a couple of mini-toggles. I’ve never seen another like it anywhere, and is one I wish I never sold! 😢 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
currypowder Posted January 16, 2020 Author Share Posted January 16, 2020 13 hours ago, gtrdaddy said: I’ve always loved old Grecos. I had a really cool neck-thru double cut in the late ‘70s-early ‘80s. Can’t recall the model name, the neck was a five-piece mahogany , purple heart, and maple strips, mahogany wings, maple cap, two humbuckers with splitting on a couple of mini-toggles. I’ve never seen another like it anywhere, and is one I wish I never sold! 😢 Sounds a little like their GO series, except that all the examples I've seen have a maple neck with mahogany strips and don't have a maple cap. I've looked through the catalogs and can't find anything like that. But that doesn't mean anything, Greco was notorious for making special runs that didn't appear in any catalogs. Old Grecos are superbly made vintage instruments. I'm lucky to have several from what I consider their golden period, 79-82, a couple of Les Paul clones, a 335, a smaller bodied semi-hollow and now the Mirage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gtrdaddy Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 1 hour ago, currypowder said: Sounds a little like their GO series, except that all the examples I've seen have a maple neck with mahogany strips and don't have a maple cap. I've looked through the catalogs and can't find anything like that. But that doesn't mean anything, Greco was notorious for making special runs that didn't appear in any catalogs. Old Grecos are superbly made vintage instruments. I'm lucky to have several from what I consider their golden period, 79-82, a couple of Les Paul clones, a 335, a smaller bodied semi-hollow and now the Mirage. Yeah, I’ve never seen another one like it. The body was like the GO III 1500, sans middle single coil and only four knobs and two mini toggles. Man do I wish I hadn't sold that one 😞 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomteriffic Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 I remember the Ibanez version of this. Incredibly cool. There was this and a double humbucker version on the wall at Mel Bay music. One of those two had checkerboard binding, which just put therm over the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadroller Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 Wow, there’s something I didn’t know existed. Ive got a pair if the Paul Gilbert “firemen“ and know an iceman variant is somewhere in my future. But that Greco is a unique bird! Especially with the case! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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