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Location: Lafayette, Louisiana | Hello everyone. What year did Ovation stop using the silver logo inside the bowl? And what year did Ovation start using the K-bar neck in Balladeer models? Thanks |
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Location: NJ | I don't recall, but search this message base for k-bar or the like, it has been discussed often. Also, you might try to track down a copy of The History Of the Ovation Guitar. Excellent reading. Although there are some minor disputes on accuracy, it's probably 99% correct. Actually as I recall there are just some minor tidbits missing, no actual mistakes that I recall... but in any case.. I really nice book, also available in paperback. |
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Location: Scotland | The 1980/81 catalog shows guitars with both standard neck-rods and K-bars, so this was obviously a transition period. Change probably happened 78/79, maybe a little earlier.
I'd guess around the same time for the labels. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Based on serial numbers, I have a 1979 guitar with the silver logo and a 1982 guitar with a paper logo. So I'm guessing 1979, 80 or 81 was the last of the silver logos. But changes like this rarely coincide with an exact model year. Basically you use up the old stuff and the start with the new. So the change could have (and likely did) happen in the midst of a production year. SO there may very well be guitars out there of the same model year with different types of logos inside the bowl. Dave |
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Location: Minneapolis, MN | My '78 1612 Custom Balladeer had a paper label, along with the old style truss rod (adjustable at the headstock)... |
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Location: Atlanta,Ga. | The transition from silver oval labels and k-bar did not happen at the same time..The labels changed around 1974 and the kaman bar happened around 1977-78...You will however be able to find some oval silver labels in some 75-76 guitars though..For the most part the paper labels were phased in by late 74 early 75....There were also some oval gold labels that i have seen in some custom legends and there were also two sizes of the silver oval labels.There were the smaller and then the full size that most guitars had... |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | According to the refernec table this 127xxx serial number guitar is a 1978. And it has a silver label. Is this the large silver lable of the small one? Dave
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2539481175 |
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Location: NJ | Oh, btw (if anybody's interested in little "piss ant" trivialities):
On those silver labels: the "V" in Ovation is backwards. |
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Location: Madison, Wisconsin | I thought it was the "O" and it was upside-down. |
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Location: SoCal | Which "O"? |
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Location: Madison, Wisconsin | I just can't help myself..
I've always thought that the silver labels made the guitar sound better than the small gold ones and that the paper ones are about the same as the large gold labels. I might be wrong but I just can't beleive we forgot to mention that at the meeting with the design guys. Maybe it's the glue that they used to fasten the silver labels I don't know.
...sorry |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Bill, You are NOT crazy (as far as I can tell). Just ask any metallurgist and he will tell you that silver reflects sould much better than gold. Gold is too soft. And paper is ... well, it's just an old tree, isn't it. So it would only figure that the silver label guitars DID sound better. Except when plugged in and amplified, the label could act as a medium wave antenna and you could get a little BBC mixed in with your "Fire And Rain". Paul T. came up with some kind of fix for this, even though he was one of the few among us that could understand what in the hell they were saying anyway. They call it "Queen's English", but even those Americans of alternative lifestyle say they've never heard of it before. Dave |
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Location: SoCal | Dave, you have got to get out of that hot Phoenix sun. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Hot? It's only 97 degrees at 9:00 PM. If it gets much cooler I'll have to put on a jacket. Dave |
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Location: Scotland | Paper labels in '74, are you sure Sam? The '77 "Guitars Of The stars" catalog clearly shows the guitars with foil labels. I realise that catalogs can inly get in the ballpark, but they're rarely 3 years out. My '77 Folklore had a foil label and a friend of mine has a '79 COuntry Artist with a foil label. |
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Location: Atlanta,Ga. | Paul, i have owned 75 and 76 balladeers with paper labels and i have owned 77's and 78 custom legend and country artists with foil labels.I also owned a shiny bowl, early ribbon rosette balladeer with a foil label in it.It had model 1111-4 on it rather that the word "balladeer" written in ??I had never seen that before.. So,its anyones guess as to what went on with the labels..My guess is that they had labels printed with designated models printed on the label.They probably used the labels until that models labels were used up..Then they would switch to the newer paper labels...
all i know is that the foil label ovation's just looked so much classier,looked more high end,more expensive for some reason...I dont know,maybe its just me......... |
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Location: Scotland | yeah, makes some sense I guess, either way you're right about the foil labels, they look way better than anything else. |
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Location: SoCal | As long as we're on trivia questions, what year did Ovation go from 3 piece tops to 2 piece, and what year did they stop the writing on the headstocks, ie Deluxe, Glen Campbell, Balladeer, etc? |
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Posts: 970
Location: Atlanta,Ga. | Paul, by late 1969 the cursive headstock writting( "deluxe" , "balladeer" ,"josh white" ,"classic", "Glen Cambell")dissapeared on the acoustic models.I have seen it on semihollows a bit later.The three piece top dissapeared a bit earlier,around 1968..However just like the labels anything is possible..Im sure you can find these features somewhere on a later model..Nothing is set in stone when it comes to guitars.. |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | I can just see CWKII sittng there saying "give this one a paper label, give that one a metallic label. You there! Write on the headstock in cursive, yeah, bwahahah, those OFC guys will NEVER figure this out, and as for serial numbers, start at 666 and go backwards, bwahahahah, mix those two and three piece tops together, that will cause some wierd posts someday. BWAHAHAHAH, they will never know what the shadow knows."
(The shadow knows what evil lurks in the minds of men.)
Bailey :cool: |
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couple of Ovation questions
