bowenite - fwiw - looked at various D25s tonight - headstock logos were either inlaid or screen printed.
Right.
Don't know when inlay was actually introduced but now wondering if it might have been concurrent with introduction of D15 as another distinguishing detail.
Thought it might have been introduced when they got snakehead headstocks but an image search showed an '85 D25 with what I assumed was black faceplate with inlay last night.
Now wondering if might actually be the same as your D17's headstock.
Further observation:
They even got silkscreen as late as '97.
Never forgot a genuine NOS '97 in Woodgrain Red up on Reverb was being discussed here a couple of years back.
Lemme tell ya it was one of the most tempting things I've ever seen here, then I noticed: Headstock was finish color and it had a silkscreen logo.
Hands jumped in and explained that if the guitar had a colored finish the headstock styed colred got the silkscreen.
Only the "Naturals" got a faceplate with pearloid inlay.
But I don't remember if he specified a time range for that, so can only say "at that time" for that detail.
Image searching might help confirm the period.
Just be careful if you try to search by year, you still get returns based on the model number, so each link has to be checked to confirm year and vetted by other details if known.
Example: Something listed as an '85 with a snakehead headstock has to be '87 or later, cause D25' didn't get 'em until then even though higher-end models did.
bowenite - I recently acquired a what I'm guessing is very late 90's Songbird, was shocked to see it had
exactly the same finish as my current D4! Almost matte on the top, low-gloss satin everywhere else!
What a sweet playing guitar! Love those GXs too!
Are you sure it's not an S4ce, which is actually not quite the same as a Songbird?
One of the critical differences was that Songbirds came with HG standard even though they were basically the same guitar.
I used to think S4ce's
were Songbirds until discovering differently a couple of years back.
A Songbird will definitely say Songbird on the label.