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Here's the deal. "Seiwa", just like "Ibanez" is just a brand name applied to a guitar that was built at a factory in Japan. In the case of "Ibanez" guitars, most of their electrics were built (up until about 1986) by the Fujigen Factory of Japan. However, Fujigen also built guitars for many different resellers, under many different brand names, such as Greco, Antoria, Cimar, Crestline, Eleca, and others, and very few of them have a direct link to "Hoshino" which is the owner of the "Ibanez" brand.
So it may be that "Seiwa" guitars were built at the Fujigen factory, but it is very unlikely that they were built FOR the Hoshino company, and thus, they are unrelated to the Ibanez brand. That's okay, though. Greco guitars are just as "unrelated", but they are excellent guitars, well worth the money. I've never heard of the "Seiwa" brand, but if it was built at Fujigen, then it is probably a very good quality guitar.
I did find one Seiwa on the internet (picture below) and it LOOKS like an Ibanez-branded "Roadstar" guitar. But it doesn't look exactly like one, or even exactly like a Cimar-branded one (which we know was a brand of Hoshino). Many Japanese manufacturers were making Roadstar-like copies in the 1980s, so just looking like an Ibanez guitar is not enough to prove it was made at Fujigen, I'm afraid.
Now, if you have evidence that this particular guitar was actually used by the person you say it was (Ali Farka Toure) then it may have value beyond its appearance. But I can tell you that, at least for this particular one pictured below, the tuners are very low-end, not a good sign for quality construction on a 1980s guitar.
http://www.ibanezcollectors.co(...)984.0
