COLD AS ICE...Ibanez Iceman

Take a ramble through the Wiki page on the Ibanez Iceman and you'll learn the guitar was born in the mid-70s out of a joint idea from the heads of several Japanese guitar manufacturers to come up with their own signature guitar shape. America had the Fender Strat and Gibson Les Paul, and Ibanez, Greco and FujiGen had been copying their designs--and getting very good at it (so good that lawsuits were filed). In fact, Japan was putting out models whose quality was at least on par with their USA counterparts. Only problem was they were mostly mimicking the iconic designs from America.

The original Iceman was produced from 1975 to 1983. It featured a unique body style and the line eventually included several models. Today the PS-10 Paul Stanley model is seen as the most valuable. In 1977 Ibanez approached Stanley while KISS was on tour in Japan and offered to make him a signature model. He liked the Iceman body style (then still called the Artist 2663) and added some of his own changes. Pictured here you see a 1979 Iceman IC100 that we sold recently. It's got the signature shape, as well as a fully bound body and neck, two "Flying Fingers" Ibanez pickups and Ibanez speed knobs. Real sweet axe. Paul Stanley would approve.