Well, this is interesting. A few months ago, well after I got my artcore, I was looking on eBay, just nosing around, and saw several AG85 models (like mine) for sale from China for approximately $4 US dollars. ( yes!! I said $4 US.) Shipping was going to be around $200 US.
I left a email for Ibanez USA about this. About a week after that, I was looking at the Ibanez site for England. (Seems they offer a really cool little practice amp not available in the States...but I digress) Anyway, there was this warning on the counterfeits from China. BUt!!!!! No notice about them on the USA website. So I emailed Ibanez USA again and asked why the USA site did not show a warning. Well, now I see, thanks to Slejhammer, that the warning is now on the USA site. So, if buying on eBay, beware where your guitar is coming from.
Ok, now to my opinion on my Artcore.....
Got it as a present two Christmases ago. Total shock.
I was looking at the Artcore AG85trd or a Carlo Robelli RB1955, which is a gretsch copy. The wife was not aware of that one which is why she bought the Ibanez.
Anyhow, It is a floating bridge as mentioned earlier. Held down only by the string pressure. I had some minor issues keeping it in tune until I raised the bridge just a bit. Seems changing the angle changed the pressure on the bridge just enough to keep the piece of wood the bridge sits on from sliding when I did string bends. It no longer moves.
A suggestion I got from Guitarnuts2.com was to use a touch of violin bow resin on the underside of the wood for the bridge. It is supposed to keep it from shifting. Didn't need to do that.
The tuners were ok but I prefer locking tuners, so I put on some new Grover
self-locking tuners.
The pickups were pretty nice. Smooth sound. Wired sort of weird. On my old Les Paul, the Volume pots were independent of each other. These were wired so if you turned one all the way down, both pickups turned off.
I resolved that by putting in some GFS Nashville pups. (Slej, I was tempted by the P90s, but opted for the nashvilles) I was looking for a bit more of a Gretsch sound and the GFS really did the job.
I rewired the pots so they no longer turned off both when one was all the way down.
Now, the neck......mmmmmmm!
Smooth as I have ever played. Decent width (edge to edge)for me and a bit thinner (fretboard to back of neck) than I've ever had. But I love it. I sometimes play with the thumb wrapped around, but I admit it is not a predominant thing. But I have not noticed any twisting that I can detect.
The setup was really good initially. Perhaps a bit too low. As I mentioned, I had to raise the action a bit to add just a touch of pressure on the bridge. Odd, but it worked out.
The finish , as far as can tell, is perfect. Binding looks good all the way around.
I have absolutely no complaints. If it was stolen or something happened to it, I would definitely go with another one. They no longer make the AG85, but I would go for a bigger body. The AG85 is a slightly smaller body. I probably would go with another set of GFS pups (love the tone they put out)
So, if you're gonna do ebay, try to find a seller that has a store and sells on line. There are quite a few folks that do that nowadays.
If you have any more questions, feel free to PM me and I'll answer you ASAP.