Reb’s original / personal WRB - 3 has been discovered in Finland. 

 

 This is the guitar with the Winger graphics, that is featured on several magazine covers and is the guitar pictured and used for Reb’s instructional video “Cutting Loose”.

 

 A Finnish guitarist, named Demus DeSanto contacted Matt Sefton a few weeks ago, looking for information on an Ibanez WRB-3 that he had just purchased on Finnish E-bay.  He was curious about the guitar because it sported many odd or custom details for a stock WRB-3.  The color was a metallic red, which was never manufactured, the heel plate serial number was from 1986 in Japan, but the WRB-3 was designed in 1989 in America, the neck was sanded, the finger board was ebony, the control cavities on the back had two separate cover plates rather than one, it had EMG active electronics, there was a tone control installed and taped up inside the control cavity, the control cavity was shielded with copper tape, it had an original Floyd Rose tremolo on it rather than the Ibanez Edge, it had Gotoh machine heads, the smaller body horn was a bit different than the stock models, the contoured heel was a bit larger than stock, and it came in a custom fitted hard case, whereas the WRB-3 was only sold with a gig bag.

 

He bought the guitar few days before Christmas. The seller was a private "half professional" guitar dealer who is usually collecting guitars from various pawn shop auctions in Finland. However, he said that this guitar became to him as a result of a swap deal.
The seller didn't recognize it as a WRB-3 model, since he is not a Ibanez expert. He was selling the guitar as a 1986 destroyer model, because of the neck plate serial number. The guitar looked like it had not been played for many years.

 

Matt advised him that this sounded like a very special WRB-3, and that he would check in with Reb about all of these details.  Reb responded with:

 

"Hi Matt,
My guess is it was mine. The only thing that stumps me is the Made in Japan thing. It should say something on it to show that it was mine, like it should be signed by Mace Bailey. As far as I know, the Japanese only made 100 of the white Winger graphic guitars. I don't think they made any in red. My guitar was once a white graphic guitar made at the La Artist factory. I had them paint over the graphic with metallic red. It also had a Floyd, because I hated the Ibanez tremolo. I sold it years ago, probably to someone in Pittsburgh. Either someone went to great lengths to reproduce the guitar, it is my original, or I am mis-informed about the Japanese models that were made."

 

Mace Bailey, in case you don't know, was Ibanez's custom shop guy who worked in Los Angeles. He handbuilt all of Reb's guitars and they are always signed on the back of the headstock by Mace.

 

Also, Demus visited with a Finnish Ibanez specialist and gathered further details.  He Wrote, “I visited today with the Finnish Ibanez import dealer guy and we took the neck off. It turned out that Reb was right.”  In the neck pocket, Mace Bailey had placed his mark, and the person who repainted the guitar also wrote his name.  The neck heel also had proper identifying letters.

 

The Ibanez dealer said that the neck's truss rod is an American made and the dots in the fret board are also "custom" not typical stock Ibanez. Based on these details the neck should also be the original. It is rather possible that someone has took off the original "Reb" neck plate and switched it to for example some stock Voyager model or this WRB guitar came with the "odd" neck plate in the first place.

 

Matt sent that round of details back to Pittsburgh, and Reb responded.
 
“God, I think that is so interesting that the guitar ended up where it did! I still don't remember who I sold it to because it was probably the first one to go.  That's amazing.  I think putting it on the website would be great! “

 

Upon hearing all of this incredible news, Demus responded:
“I'm pretty lucky guy. I was actually trying to buy a stock Ibanez Voyager  from German Ebay just few days before I bought the WRB. However, there was some guy who made a greater bid than me. If had bought the Voyager I would not have the money to bought the WRB. Destiny is a funny thing.  When I was in my teens, I collected all the Guitar World magazines including the one where Reb was on the cover with red WRB-3 and I dreamed about all those fancy guitars. I still have the magazine. This is once again a demonstration that you should be very careful what you dream, since it might one day become true”

 

Demus DeSanto plays guitar for "Love Thesis". More detailed info, pictures and sound bites are available at http://www.netsonic.fi/~lthesis