I just picked up a mid 80s Arbor branded licensed by Steinberger guitar.
This thing is really great, it blows away my Austin Hatchet I recently traveled with.
I had to wait two months, just to get this shipped from Texas to me from seller.

I am wondering who built it and when and where.

I’ve only seen exactly one of these online, a black one in a blog. I’ve seen several bass versions of this, not sure if that means many more basses than guitars sold, or guitar model was only built one year in Japan… If and when Arbor guitars transferred to Korea / Cort… the bass production continued by Cort but they stopped making the guitar? Was it only ever made in Korea and not Japan?

It just may appear here below. They also list Arbor 1983 and 1984 catalogs that have a different style headless, it doesn’t have a Steinberger tail at all, but a fat tail with regular tuners fanned out. In fact, a fairly unattractive looking solution.

http://www.vintaxe.com/catalogs_pages/catalogs_japanese_arbor_1985.php

I can’t quite determine if this 1985 catalog alleged to be from Japan shows the new Steinberger licensed model, but I believe it does.

This guitar might have been built by Cort in Korea, I have no idea. It also sports some mysterious symbols on the original wiring and pots – something like a ‘d p’ or something like that engraved on the back with D500K and _500K showing.
These pots are also shared with a MIK Guild Crossbow headless guitar but also allegedly a late 70s bass guitar made in Japan I found online as well. So the pots don’t seem to define where this guitar came from so far either.

It’s a really great player! The body has a great feel in the lap playing, with just enough body to grip it on your leg and torso. My Hatchet was a nightmare to play sitting down.

The Hatchet unmarked bridge pickup sounds much better than the ‘Arbor’ neck humbucker, however, the ‘Arbor’ bridge pickup sounds really nice, much better than the Hatchet bridge pickup.
Clean, I like it as much as my EMG 81 bridge in other guitar.

The two knobs in the pics are not original, I took these speed knobs off the Austin Hatchet. It came to me with two very tall narrow silver metal knobs. Not sure those were stock but they could be (can’t make it out in the low res catalog pic). The black plastic control cavity cover is off in pics, a sticker on it says ‘G505S’

I have a 1986 Hohner EX Professional Artist Explorer and there may or may not be some connection. I can’t really figure out if Arbor built some Hohner branded guitars… or if a 3 year old Japanese company named Arbor sold their name to Hohner ‘after they were sued’ which seems to run around the internet but I seriously doubt that’s true.

Anyone ever have one of these? If so, what do you know about them? What year did you buy it?
This guitar is a neck through construction with wings of the body added to the neck.
full 25.5″ scale length
5 pounds 5 ounces total weight.
1 + 5/8″ nut, however, the thick E string is pushed out so far, the string spacing seems to match my 1 + 11/16″ nut width guitars – same spacing feel! (although that’s the end of guitar… would you measure this at the zero fret??)
Neck: medium thick, not thin, but not what I would at least call thick (though some might). Comfortable, though, easy to play. Rosewood fretboard
Steinberger licensed bridge / tailpiece hard tail (fixed). Tunes very nicely.
original plastic control plate has sticker marked ‘G505S’

This is 100% going to become my new travel buddy. I can’t wait to fly with it for work. I just love this little guy so far!!