The fantastic thing about Ibanez Les Paul Custom designs of the seventies is that the hardware, held separately, is just standard rate. Yet the guitar remains playable in a very unique way. In many ways, the lawsuit was justified to regulate the design theory itself. So I would like to paraphrase the guide into a moral tale, for an instrument is simply a shape and a sound with some mass material bearing to the player's body. Design and technical specifications are set to a Medium and the S-L-XXL tend to fashion the stage with fringe expertise. So this Ibanez has developed a kitsch appeal word of mouth; I tend to think this will remain so until the level of music education improves the craft and introduce new conduits of exchange between the player and the craftsmen of these items. For the player, that means: this is not a thoroughbred race contender. It is a sensitive instrument, yes, but only at high volumes. It sustains electrically as all messy engineering does. Just to clear the mystery: all necks from this era will have been smoothed past the precisions of new Fenders and Gibsons in any case. It is a good factory-grade standard we are respecting here and not much else. The other excuse this guitar would like to give you (the interested shopper) : watching as you are the market shifting to 'project' minded studios and capable reproduction, instruments are as revivalist as the sound palette. We will keep the sound of the era in a recording, regardless of the headstock design. The lawsuit doesn't speak to the sound of the instrument. The Ibanez bodies from this lawsuit series are composite wood. There is no sustain. There is no resistance to sonority but the glue and the binding sound proof the cavities, no question. It's a nice romance in the quieter, gentler way; I have a parasexual relationship with my Black Beauty; it is truly groovy. However her sisters keep asking for real buyers. To antique the lawsuit, let us not. The bookend is a flourish to a model elegance, fine. I respect the cost estimates provided in the first guide and suggest that respect for gold equal its permanence as well as its impertinence. There are many fine instruments available at boutique prices; this particular one just wants some exchangeable terms of agreement within an industry that sells-out to hype. Later we could have a guide to specific cases of over-bidding and the rare quality of exceptional modifications and the worthiness of replacing this to that. But this market is open to another forum on all such commercial concerns. Finally, to the auctioneer and prospector: it's just another interesting piece. I suggest vilifying the craftsmen that are creating the details and balances of newer and less well-known designs.