I am just speechless with the body contour. The first word coming from my tongue when I touched the streamlined spruce body was 'sexy'. This is Yamaha's art at its finest! The stunning features of this legendary jazzbox include the ideal combination of Spruce top + Maple neck + Ebony fretboard, twin humbuckers with coiltap phasing switches, shiny blonde natural finish, and braided wiring, just to name a few. No wonder AE-18 is often neck-and-neck compared with Gibson ES 350 or L5 CES. What is more, good news even for fusion / non-jazz players - original tailpiece was replaced with Bigsby tremolo arm, enabling you to play hard vibration.

Quality of this guitar is somewhere between excellent and good. A little bit of tarnishing, such as no pickguard, aged trustrod smeared on the rear neck (not a crack at all), and neck wear on the right hand side. Detailed photos taken and attached below. Your generous judgment will be appreciated. Other than that, action, intonation all good, both pickups resonate with matured jazz tone. No noise in circulating the knobs and little fret wear.

To date this guitar I called Yamaha HQ informing of serial number 31657. They responded it was manufactured at Hamamatsu Factory in Japan, July 1976. Excited to be asked this treasure, he proudly explained AE full hollow series, along with SG solid body and SA semi hollows sits on Yamaha's top range trilogy. 2 digit AE series (AE-11 AE-12 / AE-18) evolved to 4 digit AE's in 1980 (AE1200, AE1500, AE2000), among which AE1200 got revived again in 1990 with the new name given 'AE1200S-II'. All are revered jazz guitar and still holds high accolades. My closing comment, this is definitely a true vintage classic.

I don't have the case for this guitar yet. I will get you either second hand soft case (costs additional $30) or hard case (additional $60) depending on your preference. The shipping cost below is based on the softcase, and will go a bit higher for hardcase buyer.