Bob Weir's Cowboy Fancy

The guitar features a pre-amp with three band active EQ, DiMarzio Virtual PAF and Virtual Vintage pickups, a 5-piece maple/walnut thru-neck with pearl vine inlay, swamp ash body and much more. The completely handmade guitar will be limited to 30 worldwide with just 15 going to the United States.
The so-called "Cowboy Fancy" models were made for Bob Weir of Grateful Dead by Ibanez about 1976. That name comes from an answer Weir gave to Jeff Hasselberger of Ibanez who had asked him what he would like a guitar to look like. Referring to the often ornate inlays on the guitars of the old Country and Western stars, Weir replied, "Let's go for the full cowboy fancy," and so Full Cowboy Fancy it was. The word "Ace" on the fretboard refers to Weir's nickname, which comes from his first solo album of the same name.
The Cowboy Fancy shape was intended to be a compromise between a Gibson ES345, which Bob was playing at the time, and the Ibanez artist. One of the requests by Bob Weir was for a larger headstock than the prior smaller and more ornate Weir model headstocks so as to increase sustain. Hasselberger came up with the Ibanez 3-on-a-side design, which ultimately made its way into smaller versions for the George Benson guitars and other Ibanez jazz guitars. The explanation for the multitude of switches on the recreation also comes from what Bob Weir wanted in the Cowboy Fancy models. Said Jeff Hasselberger in an online reply as to the origins of the guitar: "We made a couple of the 'cowboy' models with a number of switching combos that were constantly going under the surgeon's soldering iron. Basically, Bob wanted as much flexibility of pickup selection as we could deliver. So he had a choice of single coils, series humbuckers, parallel humbuckers, phase reversals and so on. We also used the standard Artist EQ system on at least one of them."
The first Cowboy Fancy guitars featured a sliding middle pickup. Eventually Weir found the position he liked best and that became the ultimate position in the fixed pickup model.