2630 Artist Semi Acoustic – 1979

This is my ’79 Artist 2630 semi acoustic model. I wouldn’t call it a copy at all but from the construction & concept it’s close to the Gibson ES-335. Although it is a semi acoustic it gives you a wide variability of sounds. You can play almost everything from Jazz & Blues  to Country and Rock. Even heavy stuff is no problem because the the 2630 is quite resistant against feedback.

It’s in completely stock condition and sounds & plays absolutely awesome. The flame on the bookmatched  top is overwhelming beautiful. There are only a few minor dings and the binding is in good condition. Even if there can be seen some minor cracks, it’s stable and didn’t change since I bought the guitar from a guy in Munich in fall 2013. I believe the reason is, that don’t store the guitar in it’s original hard shell case but have it hanging on the wall what avoids binding detoriation by agressive gassing out of parts like the pickguard.

The Artist 2630 also is the predecessor of the famous AS-200 which is one of Ibanez’ ‘Evergreens’ and sold until today. I’ve never compared them diretly but in my opinion the 2630 has some advantages over the AS-200.

The most obvious and important one is the fact, that the 2630 has the output jack on the side and not on the top of the body. I’ve seen many Semi Acoustics and also Ibanez Musicians which partially had the same drawback, where the output jack was broken or cracked because the player stepped on the cable by accident. This is very hard to repair without the damage staying visible and also affects the guitar’s value and collectibility.