anybuddy know about ARIA guitars?

Hootsmon

what can you tell us about....year and resale price for good condition,

ARIA PRO II TA40

serial number 3070247

custom body 555719

Rox

If completed and current Ebay listings are anything to go by, £200 ish. 

Hootsmon

thanks Rocks......

anybuddy date the guitar for certain?

guitars4you

Quite often the 1st digit or the 1st and 2nd digit give you the date of birth, but obviously 30 is not a year (until we get to 2030) - So on that basis 1983 is probably the year - Not sure what the 555719 relates to - I recall it is a bolt on neck, but can't recall if the serial number is on the neck plate or in the f hole - Agree with Rox that around £200/230 is  a fair e-bay/private sale - Generally not a bad box at that price 

Sarge

I thought the TA40 range didn't come about til the 90s?
http://www.matsumoku.org/models/ariaproii/hollow.html

guitars4you

It is not a Matsumoku made in Japan model - I'm shooting from the hip but recall they are all Korean and came out sometime in the 80's - With that 1st digit giving you the year, then it could be 83 or 93 - The TA40 made in Korea effectively replaced the TA30 from Japan, so yes if the Matsumoku days finished in 1987, then 1993 is more likely - I know customers want to know the age, but the key points are the TA40, bolt on neck, Aria Pro 11 and the price and at £200, it is a great buy for someone

blueskunk

Old school jap ones are good.

guitars4you

blueskunk said:

Old school jap ones are good.

The old Jap models are fine guitars as you say - They will give the Jap built Yamaha SA and Ibanez AS models a run for their money, along with many mediocre 70's Gibson ES335's - Today as a brand they have lost some direction and maybe credibility as they have been absent in the larger high street stores for so long, with very little media coverage - yet in the 80's many chart bands played the Aria SB1000 base, including Jack Bruce, whilst Andy Summers and Gerry Cott (Boomtown Rats) played the electric guitars

TTony

I certainly remember them from the late 70s/early 80s as being one of the better MiJ options.

IIRC, @ESBlonde has an Aria Pro II - but that's a big IF I remember correctly, the EA GasFest was a while back.

TonyR

I had a Japanese Aria Pro II TA30 in the mid to late 80s. It was a lovely guitar but I had the hankering for a Rickenbacker and it went in part exchange for my Rickenbacker Pete Townshend Limited Edition in 1988.

ESBlonde

Yes @TTony remembers well. PE1000 and I'm the original owner so still have case candy etc. Fantastic quality if a little lacking in distinctive sound character. They were imported by a company called Giggsville in Surrey into the UK back in the day.
I think @guitars4you is about right on the model in question. The matsumoko.org site is where the hard core fans hang out and likely have the definitive. But at about £200+ it will be a reliable easy to play instrument that is unlikely to go down much in value.

octatonic

I don't know anything about that model but I own this.

It started as an Aria, the only thing left is the body.

I put a PRS trem and some PRS pickups in it, warmoth neck which has since been sold on.

I'm actually making a new neck for it at the moment.

CHRISB50

The other guitarist in my first band had an Aria Pro ii TA40 back in the 90s. It was a really nice guitar.

ICBM

I always liked the Matsumoku ones, but the later Korean ones less so. It's unfortunate that their downmarket spiral didn't stop there either - they produced some really dire junk in the late 90s, before finally moving to China and doing much better quality reissues of some of the classic designs - although still not quite as good as the originals.

I have an '84 RS Standard, which is a sort of 'skinny' Strat copy - same shape as the later Cat/Straycat/Wildcat and Knight Warrior, but with simple 50s-style Strat hardware.

I'd quite like another bass at some point too - I had three back in the 80s, an original SB-1000 (valuable now, but I don't like the very narrow string spacing that much) and a pair or SBR-60s, one of which I de-fretted. These have a wider spacing and aren't very collectable, so I would probably buy one, especially an original fretless.

stickyfiddle

Someone I went to school with had one of those 335-ish ones, in maybe 2002. From my very early days of playing, but a really nice thing actually - better than Epi semis of that time.

And my first acoustic was an Aria electro. Decent solid gigging guitar.

ESBlonde

There were a few Aria Microphones late 70s early 80s before the cheap Chinese stuff was readily available. I bought a couple on the basis that the guitars were tip top. They were better than many but not a patch on the Sennheiser/Shure/AKG stuff but given the price they were good value for money.

Here is some more useless backgound fluff.
http://atlansiaguitars.com/About.php

 

Iamnobody

I have a Jap Aria LP in my custody now. Not for much longer though

I reckon for the money they punch well above their weight. Seems a well put together guitar and is aging nicely (early 80's). People seem to be chasing Greco, Burny etc but the same era/factory Aria slip under the radar.

kjdowd

My first guitar was an Aria Pro II. Natural finish as I recall, twin humbuckers and some sot of active boost circuit. I took it apart for a mate to paint and it never became - to borrow the words of atomic kitten - whole again. No idea where it is now.

robwright

The TA's are great guitars, and the Korean ones are top value.

I have to get rid of either a MIK TA40 or a MIJ Washburn HB35 - it'll be a close call!

Palmer880

Hey yall! I’m new to this but recently purchased another aria proII RS wildcat and wondered if somebody could shed some light on serials and what not. 

Neck plate states as follows:

aria pro 2
accurate bolt on system
6032005
made in japan

Sarge

Yeah good guitar, if at Aria"s budget end, made in March 86 (first number denotes which year in the 80s, 2nd 2 numbers are the month and the rest are the production number) at the Matsumoku factory.
I hated the neck on mine and didn't keep it long enough to tinker with it or get used to it. 

Generally speaking the Aria brand produced good solid guitars back then, at all budgets, the mid to top end were particularly good. 
after the Matsumoku factory closed (1986) production moved to Korea with mixed results, then further afield to Indonesia iirc and elsewhere, depending I guess where labour was cheapest.