When you are looking for a guitar, you will typically walk into a friendly, local, well-stocked guitar shop with certain priorities in mind.
Whilst every guitarist has a different mindset, buying a guitar means prioritising two of the following:
- Prestige
- Quality
- Affordability
What makes guitar collecting so special is that there are so many styles to choose from, and many guitarists looking for a particular design will opt for another brand which offers it in the right colour, at a better price or with the pickups and bridge they want.
With a potential legal precedent putting this practice at risk, it is worth looking back at the first so-called “lawsuit era” of guitars, and how it allowed more people than ever to pick up the guitar of their dreams and play.
What Is A Lawsuit-Era Guitar?
The “lawsuit era” is a specific era of guitars made in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s that were characterised by low prices, remarkable quality despite using cheaper materials, and suspiciously similar designs to those made popular by Gibson and Fender, the Big Two of guitars.
This was an age before Epiphone and Squire, but around the time that Les Pauls, SGs, Telecasters and Stratocasters were surging in price whilst facing criticisms for quality control issues they would eventually fix.
This made reproductions, typically made by Japanese companies under a wide range of brand names, extremely popular, particularly amongst a wave of new heavy metal guitarists who had already taken to customising existing guitars.
They looked the part to an almost suspicious degree, played very well and often had features a Stratocaster of the era may not have had, such as a Floyd Rose floating bridge. This has made them somewhat collectable in their own right.
The era lasted from the late 1960s up until the early 1980s, although it began to tail off from 1977 onwards.
Who Was The Most Famous Lawsuit-Era Guitar Maker?
By far the most famous lawsuit-era guitar maker was Ibanez, which was a brand name owned by Hoshino Gakki and was known for making astonishing high-quality reproductions of existing models before moving on to more aggressive “superstrat” designs.
Whilst they are primarily known for double-cutaway guitars such as the beautiful AZ Standard Series, the JEM and the RG series, they initially got their start by making reproductions of both Fender and Gibson guitars, selling well once imported worldwide.
Other Notable Guitar Makers In The Lawsuit Era
- Aria
- Tokai
- Greco
- Electra
- Fernandes
- CMI
- Were There Any Guitar Lawsuits?
Despite the name implying that Fender and Gibson were sending cease and desist notices to everyone making a guitar inspired by two of the most famous silhouettes in history, only one actual lawsuit was ever filed.
On 28th June 1977, Gibson sued Elger, the American distributor of Ibanez guitars, accusing them of specifically ripping off the trademark “open book” headstock design seen on Gibson and Epiphone guitars.
The year before, Ibanez had altered their headstocks slightly, and ultimately settled out of court in 1978.
Ibanez was already moving away from reproduction guitars, but the company focused far more on making custom designs from that point onwards, which coincided with a significant increase in their quality.