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What’s Your Beef?:
Few Leftie Ibanez Guitars
Yannick Rafferty from Hamilton, Ontario is annoyed because Ibanez
hardly makes any guitars for lefties. Street Cents checks out why
that is, and offers Yannick some suggestions.
Viewer Letter
I have been playing guitar for 4 years. Unfortunately being left-handed means my choices are very limited in what guitars I can purchase.
I realize that the cost of making left-handed guitars is more than right-handed guitars, so they have to charge more. I can live with this.
But the fact that some companies do not even think about making left-handed guitars upsets me greatly.
The Ibanez line of guitars has been one of my favorites since I started playing. But even this great guitar company doesn’t make most of their models left-handed.
I was deeply angered when I found this out because I saved up specifically to buy one of their guitars. I wrote them a letter but unfortunately I never received a reply.
It’s like a tease to walk into a guitar store and to only be able to play one instrument in the entire place. I don’t think this is right at all.
Yannick Rafferty
Hamilton, Ontario
Street Cents Response
Yannick, it sucks, but most companies have a pretty limited selection when it comes to left-handed guitars. Out of the 155 models manufactured by Ibanez, only three are made for lefties. The reason is like you said, cost.
Ibanez told Street Cents it’s just not cost-effective to make a huge selection of left-handed guitars because there aren’t that many people who need them. Making a left-handed model means that all their machines need to be reset and adjusted. This takes time and time means money.
If you want to complain to Ibanez, send it to their Canadian distributer at this address:
Efkay Musical Instruments
2165 46th Ave.
Lachine, Quebec
H8T 2P1
Other Brands
Street Cents checked with Gibson, a company that makes Gibson and Epiphone guitars.
Epiphone offers 24 left-handed string instruments (electric guitars, acoustic guitars and electric bass guitars) out of the 394 string instruments in their catalogue. Gibson offers 69 left-handed instruments out of the 446 string instruments in their catalogue.
Gibson told Street Cents they do have most of the left-handed instruments in stock, but sometimes customers have to wait up to a year if the instrument they want isn’t in stock. This is because Gibson won’t make a batch of left-handed guitars of a particular model until they have enough orders to make it worthwhile.
Street Cents also checked with Fender. They wouldn’t comment on specific numbers, but they admitted they don’t offer every brand in right and left-handed models.
Another Option
You can turn your right-handed guitar into a leftie!
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