Several months ago someone e-mailed me and told me that the DT-155 came in another color besides black.
Being the sensitive soul that I am, I told this person they were crazy and had no clue what they were talking about.
They sent me a photo.
"Rubbish: it's been refinished. Hope you didn't pay a lot for it."
Well...
As it turns out, this person knew exactly what they were talking about and I was wrong (again).
FujiGen-Gakki, the company that manufactured Ibanez guitars for Hoshino-Gakki in the 1970s and 1980s, was notorious for performing "spot production runs" of undocumented finishes on guitar models. They didn't do this for every model, of course, but it did happen from time to time.
I was aware of this at the time of our conversation but, having seen only one example of this special DT-155, I was much more inclined to think "refinish" than "spot run".
It started nagging at me, though, so I began digging a little bit.
The first DT-155s were released in 1983 so I needed to match up the finish with one that - hopefully - already existed prior to 1983.
After some digging, I found a 1982 Roadstar (I think that's what it was) that had the same finish: Marine Sunburst.
It's a dark blue/green burst on a black background.
OK, I felt that it was at least theoretically possible a spot run was done with this finish since it already existed prior to the DT-155s being produced.
So, I started keeping my eyes open for another one of these mystery DT-155s.
I'll tell you: photographic quality is not the forte of sellers on eBay.
If I didn't know - specifically - what I was looking for I would have thought that finish color was black that had faded slightly blue or was the result of some weird lighting effect or camera flash.
Over the course of several months I actually found about 4 more of these special DT-155s, all with the Marine Sunburst finish and all in horrible shape.
I finally found one in very nice condition on eBay and snagged it for a lot less than I had expected.
It's missing the tremolo arm and one string tree, the bridge pickup has been replaced and it looks like two of the pup rings have been drilled.
Overall, I'd say the finish is an 8.5/9 out of 10.
EDIT: updated photo showing restored model
Thanks, Chris, for turning me on to these.