Ibanez Cimar

My Cimar is a strat copy made probably between 78-80. It's made in Japan, it's unbelievably heavy and it has a thicker body than a Fender and without the carvings on the back. It has 3 single coils and a 3-way selector. It only has 2 nobs one for volume and one for tone. The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard and it has a really thick gloss coat.

The sound is rather raw and resembles the vintage strat sound quite a lot. I ussualy play it through my Peavy backstage plus and it sounds ok, but in the studio through a UK marshall it really shines and there you can really get this retro strat sound. I prefer playing it clear through the neck pup to get a full, rich, vibrant sound, but it sounds ok also distorted through the mid or bridge pup.

I got the guitar second hand so I have no idea how it was set up. But when I got it the action was low enough and the neck was straight as an arrow. The action is relatively fast, no more so than a fender. The finish is still glossy and because it's so thick it's really hard to ding. The hardware started to show some rust, but nothing to be really worried about.

Well, it's a 30 year old guitar and it still plays pretty good and it can put any mexican fender to shame with it's clear vibrant sound. The wiring failed me a couple of times, but i got it repaired within a matter of a few minutes. Other than that everything is still in place, tight and solid.

Never tried them.

This is the second guitar I ever owned and I got it when I was 16. 20 years later and despite the fact that i own 3 more expensive and more respected guitars now the Cimar is the one that's always out of it's case next to the amp, plugged in and ready to play. I love the way it's fretboard feels and the fact that i can get sounds out of it that normally would need a much more expensive vintage instrument to produce. This guitar is by no means a looker, but when I play it and people don't see it they always assume it's a 60's strat.

I have an Ibanez|Cimar strat copy, Im not sure what year it was made I Bought it in 1984 and it looked quite a few years old even back then, it was my first guitar. Its made in japan and is pretty much a standard 70's strat copy its got 21 frets 3 single coils and a 5 way selector switch. Its a clearcote brown type color with a black pickguard I used to think it was the ugliest guitar on the planet.
I always thought it was a piece of crap and never treated it with any respect whatsoever so it has a few dents scratches etc. I bent the original maple neck and replaced it with a 60's style strat copy rosewood one a few years after i bought it, this added a little bit of warmth to the sound i replaced the stock tuners with some slihtly better ones i bought cheap off a friend as the originals were useless if you wanted to stay in tune. I also replaced the bridge pickup with a semour duncan at the same time.
Even after the alterations i still thought this guitar was crap and i must say it took a hell of a lot of punishment i have thrown it at walls many times. Ive used it live a few times and it even went on tour as my backup guitar when playing interstate where it was very mistreated.
Everything has been thrown at this guitar its been dropped,its been smashed against walls its had drinks dropped on it you name it.
Later on i retired it where it became my bedroom guitar for a few years. A few years later I gave it away to a friend who travelled around the country with it for 12 years. Yep and guess what he gave it back to me 12 years later a few months ago.
Well this thing is indestructible its still works fine, stays in tune, and the neck is still straight, the action is incredibly low and fast for any strat. The sound is quite good like a 70 s strat but a little less refined which makes it sound angry, i like it. It sounds crispy and fresh clean and quite tough and cutting with distrotion its a really cool strat. Ive had alot of good guitars since those days but this is something else its a bit hard to play and a little noisy but its kindof rewarding. I never used it on a recording before but I will in the future.

I mostly play metal so it doesnt really suit that style, its noisy with distortion but its got single coils so watdoya expect.
Its got its own unique angry strat sound thou wich i like very much.
Lacks tone but has nice sharp harmonics.
Good for most styles from dido to deicide.

Its got a brass bridge which contributes to its sound i guess.
If you put a decent pickup in the bridge you wont be disapointed.
Other 2 pickups are fine as they are, neck is a little boomy but i like it.
Guitar seems well made.
Its probably 30 years old I cant believe it, electrics still sound good.

This is one of the toughest guitars on the planet
Finish looks shit but its durable damn hard to scratch
Its kinda like an old holden it will never run well but itl never let you down either.

forget it

Ive been playing guitar for 21 years and am mostly an Ibanez RG player.
A friend of mine who is a master lead man and fender lover loves it so i guess that means something.
Ill be looking after this guitar from now on I didnt realise i missed it untill i got it back.

I even like the way it looks now.
If you find one of these for under $200 and like strats buy it.

i have bought this one on ebay, and it is great guitar. it was build in japan in the middle seventies, cimar was an ibanez-company.
i have no idea of what the body is made of, it is not as heavy as a gibson, but has a nice warm sound. pickups are well, rich of tone. it comes with the classical 4 knobs and the rythm/lead-toggle, wich all work very well.
the tuners are also wellmade, the guitar stays in tune also due heavy usage with some beers and a spliff... :-)

i mostly play rock and blues with a slight touch of britpop. more crunchy sounds. the sound lies somewhere between a gibson lp and a strat, not so fistle like a strat, but a bit more aggressive like a lp.
noise is no problem, i play it with an 100W carlsbro amp.

even the guitar is about 30 years old, the finish and all the hardware is perfect. ok, some dings and dongs, but hey, this is ok.

the only thing i replaced was the strap-button-screw which was loose. all oter stuff works and fits perfect since 30 years.

no idea.

I really love this guitar! not more to say!

When I was ten 31 years ago I bought an Ibanez Cimar C300cw accoustic. It was my first guitar, the neck is mohaganny but the back and sides are Cherry! with a spruce sound top. I've had well over fifty guitars since those early days...and guess what the Cimar is still my favorite, despite having been stolen from my road gear after a show, a quick cop spotted it in a pawn shop and I got it back. The action is faster then any accoustic I have ever played, and the Cherry wood gives it a distinct, chrisp tone like no other guitar.

Just a perfect instrument though the bridge is lifting a little bit these days. Chrisp, yet warm tone, and speed you shouldn't be able to get on an accoustic

The finish is getting a little rough these days, having been back and forth across the continent dozens of times. But the deep translucent burgundy finish is what caught my eye the day I bought it!!

It's 31 years old November 2005, and still my favorite accoustic...what's that tell ya about durability

Never talked to customer support

This was my first guitar and will be my last and i might even ask to be buried with it! It's absolutely stunning in all respects!!!

I have a similar story to the guy who paid 85 for his V shaped guitar. This one was also a cashies find, and we paid around $135 for it. The only major problems were that the nut was buggered and there were some chips in the dark navy blue paint, but other than that, it's in good condition! I did a bit of research and discovered that this guitar is called the Cimar Star (hence the star shape), and was made in around '81. Mine has a single bridge humbucker, one volume pot and one tone pot. The humbucker is a gotoh something or other, and it screams. It is really a great sounding guitar. It's a shame that these beauties seem to be a rarity,

Sounds absolutely awesome. Plugged into my metalzone, then into my Peavey Mace (brought from the same cashies for $400...it has 6 power tubes!!!), you can get practically any sound. However, my guitar is pretty much set on 'death metal' ;).

When it comes to clean sounds though...it kind of fails. If I could get the next model (which has a neck humbucker as well), that would be great. But to get clean sounds out of this beast, you need to roll off the volume abit, and roll down the tone as well.

When I got the guitar, the action sucked, and still does slightly suck, due to the neck not being %100 straight...but im getting that fixed.

The paint work was chipped, and i don't really fancy the dark navy blue paint job.

Besides those two things, this is one nice looking guitar, and it is a dream to play...feels alot like my ibanez roadstar.

Hehe, when i took the scratch plate of this thing, i discovered that the body is routed for a neck humbucker ;D

This guitar will definitely withstand live playing, but i would use a backup anyway :). The hardware is definitely heavy duty, but i think (for asthetic reasons...i don't like having even little scratches or dents in the hardware) i might replace the tuners, and maybe put on a fixed bridge.

One thing i noticed about the strap buttons on this guitar, is that they are really chunky! I love em!

Never dealt with Cimar/Ibanez...

Let me see...I've been playing geetar for around three years now (started playing seriously when I was about 14) and this has to be one of my favourite pieces of gear. I own a bunch of other guitars, including an original Ibanez Roadstar, a mystery 'onyx' guitar, a fender acoustic from like...thousands of years ago, and probably a bunch of others sitting around in the shed. Amp wise, I'm using a 160 watt combo Peavey Mace (2 12inch speakers, 6 power tubes, solid state pre-amp :( ), but before that i was using a Marshall Lead 20, and before that, A Roktek something or other :P. The only pedals im using at the moment are my Boss Metalzone, and my DOD Icebox chorus.

If my guitar were stolen, I would have a serious cry, and then I would save the cash to buy another one. I LOVE THIS GEETAR!!!

My favourite feature about this guitar, is how grim it looks :).

It's funny, because if dad didn't mention that there was an explorer style guitar in cashies, then I probably wouldn't have ended up scoring this guitar (he got a bit muddled up with his guitar descriptions :P). And he even paid for it :D.

Man...the only thing this guitar needs is a pointy headstock, ALA jackson.

If you come across one of these sexy guitars, buy it, or tell me about it so I can buy it :)

I have a Cimar Strat made in Japan circa 1985 - that's a total guess though. I bought for $150 from a friend of the family - it belonged to their son, who had left it floating around their basement. Since it's a knock-off, I'm going to compare it to the real deal - my friend recently bought a high end Fender Strat originally listed at $1,300, but it was marked down to $1,000 for a damaged strap bolt on the upper bout - it looks like the screw hole for the bolt was bored too wide, so the screw and bolt keep popping out.

Cosmetically, the Cimar isn't a real looker; appointments are Spartan. It has a blonde neck with painted on black markers and average quality wood (appears to be maple), solid red body (wood unknown), white three ply pick guard, three way selector switch, three single coils and volume/tone/tone controls. I do like the brass bridge saddles and string-through-body fixed bridge. The instrument takes a pounding and stays in pretty good tuning despite the less than stellar tuners.

The Fender definitely wins in the looks department, with greater attention to detail and better overall quality. In fairness, you'd have to expect this from a guitar listing for $1,100 or more than what I paid for the Cimar. The only thing is I've always thought Fender Strats are really fucking cheap looking from giddy up, so the difference in appearance between the two guitars didn't really impress me all that much. Overall, the guitars are equally functional and equally comfortable.

It sounds great - at least as "Straty" as the Fender. However, the neck pickup can get really muddy and blooms very hard if you lay into the strings. I think this is mostly a function of the height of the pickup in relationship to the strings - now that I'm thinking of it, I'll try lowering it to see if it helps. The middle pickup and the "in-betweens" are great for country, funk and reggae, and the bridge pickup works surprisingly well with overdrive and distortion - no ice pick in the ear syndrome. My favorite pickup position is the neck, even though it can get muddy; it's incredibly ballsy. As is typical for a single-coil design, it's somewhat noisy, but no worse than any strat I've ever heard. In all honesty, I think the Cimar sounds as good, if not better, than the Fender. The Fender definitely sounds a bit more refined all around though; less noise, less bite, but the rawness present on the Cimar is missed.

I adjusted the action myself, and was able to get it amazingly low without string drop off. It keeps intonation very well, and the neck has never bowed at all, which is pretty amazing, since I string it with 0.11's. My main guitar is a Carvin, which are reknowned for low action and a superfast neck. The Cimar actually beats my Carvin in terms of action and overall neck stability. The Cimar's neck is very easy to play and only comes up short to the Carvin in terms of scale length 22 vs. 24 frets.

It also beats the strat in terms of neck stability and tuning. The biggest difference with the Fender Strat seems to be the height of the neck above the pickguard. The rosewood fretboard on the Fender makes it at least 3/16th of an inch higher than the Cimar's maple neck. This works to the disadvantage of the Cimar, because there is more range in pickup height with the Fender

I've approximated the age of this thing at roughly 19 years. It could very easily be 5 to 10 years older for all I know. I've treated the thing like a piece of shit, and it has withstood everything I've thrown at it. I'm actually starting to appreciate it a good deal more. The one exception is the nylon nub on the pickup selector switch keeps popping off - a recent development, but nothing that a little glue won't fix. It's as solid as you'd expect a real Fender Strat to be, and in actuallity is probably more sturdy given the MAJOR defect with the strap bolt on my friend's guitar.

Never dealt with them. As far as I'm concerned, for $150 you're on your own.

I've been playing guitar for about 20 years and played pretty much every type of guitar out their, including premium Fenders (Tele and Strats), Gibson SGs and LPs, highend vintage Ibanez models, BC Rich, Carvins, tons of knock-offs, etc. I find nothing not to like about this thing. It sounds as good as a true blue Fender, but I find it has a lot more personality than modern Fender Strats. I don't particularly care for its looks - it's very boring in this department. However, it would make an especially good project guitar for people who like to mess with their stuff. I could easily refinish it and restock the pick-ups if I were so inclined. Howeverm being that it sounds great, a kicker in the looks department is all it really needs. So it looks like I'm going to be the only schmuck on this page to give it a good review. Maybe there is substantial QC issues from model to model. All I'll say is if your not embarrassed by the Cimar name on the headstock, this thing is as least as good an all around performer as a bonafied Fender.

judging by the serial number on the neck plate, this beauty was made in 1982. It was made in Japan. it has 22 frets,it has a maple neck and i guess a ash body/ Only one humbucker pickup, tone and volume knobs. Its red with a white scratchplate, the shape of the body is weird, is like a flyin V with the top wing shorter and two other wings diagonally so it looks like a star!, good tuners and original japanese strat tremolo, it came "in the nude", no case. The brand name on the headstock reads "cimar, electric guitar" (well of course)

sounds great if you're into ACCADACCA or ZZTOp or similar bands but i guess it goes well with any bluesy music you'd play, i havent cranked it up yet

action's was rooted, i had to fiddle around with the truss rod and saddles but i got it sounding pretty good, i had to add the volume and tone knobs

it looks like its pretty tuff, i guess its been around since 82' it has some scratches but theyre minor, it looks great, it goes out of tune a little bit but it may be b/c the strings are new and/or hadsnt been played for a mighty long time

company support does not exist!

i've been playing for 20 years, i bought a flying v from the same place for a similar amount of money, and i vowed never to part with it, but i did and ive been kicking myself for it so to find this one again was a blessing. I love it because its unusual, it has a good sound, simple setup,one pickup, and it just looks damn cool. Kids at the school where i teach music also love it, they just drool over the fact that i paid so little for it! I mean, you cant buy a decent guitar for under 400 bucks so this one was a great deal People at this shop are total idiots, dont know how to value these guitars, which is cool, i will keep buying them cause i just lurv guitars! i have a hi way one strat,a squire strat, and a classical and 12 string, i have this one to trash around, but i may take it to gigs for a laugh

This is a early 90s guitar thrown out by ibanez. it has 21 fret heavy I think maple neck and fretboard. simple tremola and HSH pickup setup. Resembles a strat or ibanez grx. crapy hardwear. heavy body made of uknown meterial (probably lead)

this would be a great guitar, if i was trying to get a broken down, buzzing, drowned out sound. but fortunatly im not I play evrything else though blue's, metal, and light rock. it did'nt work for any of these exept for metal. I smashed this thing so hard it felt good.

crap crap crap

hey the paint stayed on....damn

I like Ibanez just not this guitar

I've been playing for almost 3 years and i've owned several guitars. this being by far the worst. I own a destroyer that blows this out of the water. I own a Rg570 That makes this look like crap. I own a cheapo squire and when thats held up against this thing, it shines. even my cort is better than this. But hey if your lookin for sompthing you can throw around and not worry about breakin this is the guitar for you. trust me you will want to throw it around.

THIS WAS MY 1ST GUITAR. IT HAS 3 PICKUPS AND IS A SIMPEL START COPY.IT LOOKS ALWRIGHT BUT IS A BIT HEAVY AND DOSENT STAY TUNED FOR LONG.

IT SUITS MY MUSIC STYLE FINE BECAUSE I PLAY ALOT OF PUNK AND GRUNGE,ITS A BIT TOO NOISY.SHOULD USE A GOOD AMP OR IT SOUNDS LIKE CRAP.

I DONT L;IKE THE PICKUPS, NOT GOOD SOUNDING,

GOD FOR PLAYING LIVE AND JUMPEN AROUND,STRAP BUTTONDS SEEM TO BRAKE EASY AND I WOULDENT DEPEND ON IT IN A BIG SHOW

WHO MAKES THESE THINGS,. IF U KNOW EMAIL ME CON_THE_PUNKER@HOTMAIL.COM

GOOD FOR STARTING OUT, THE THING I DONT LIKE ABOUT IT IS THAT IT WILL UN-TUNE WHEN U ARE STRUMING IT.ALSO VERY HEAVY, BUT ALROUND A GOOD GUITAR.

early eighties strat i assume,hasn`t got a serialnumber,made in japan.relative heavy body,unknown wood.5way selector,21fret maple fingerboard on a 25 1/2 scale maple neck i presume.string-thru body,really painful playing with the stringheightadjusters digging into my hand.the bridge is also put on a little askew,the strings doesn`t match the polepieces on the pickups.s/s/s pickupconfiguration,noisy bastards!!!iceblue finish,white 3ply scratchplate,crap tuners but gentle playing help keeping the guitar in tune.

I am not a strat-man,I am more like a Gibson les paul dude,but there is some good tones in this cheapo strat,it doesn`t really sounds bad at all,except for the noise .I play metal mostly and this guitar can handle it,except the tuning goes out after a few Randy rhoads-licks.
I guess the faulty bridge placement contributes slighty to the sound

I bought this used from a buddy of mine so I can`t comment on that.crap tuners,bridge installed slightly wrong,otherwise good.just needed to get a good setup

this guitar has been played live on a few occations,it can handle it all.I once threw it out of a car,build like a tank

nix og nei.repaired it myself.

been playing since I was 11.now I am 26 so it has been a while.own about 12 guitars ,Ibanez,cimar,epiphone,gibson,washburn,westone,hondo(!!!!)samick,.if it were stolen then...not the end of the world,would happily smash it in bin ladens head without consideration!!in fact i would smash all of my guitars in that bastards head anytime.merry christmas everybody!!!