I should probably stay out of this.. 

Reposted from www.baronaudio.com/collection originally written around 2003.

     In 1975 I bought my first Ovation, a Medallion, from Dick Rivers's of River's Music, Inc. in Connecticut. He later introduced me to the Viper, Preacher and Deacon guitars and Ovation amplification and although I did not buy my first electric Ovation from him, he kept me in strings and accessories through the early part of my Navy career that started in 1977. While stationed in Pensacola Florida, I decided to get plugged-in. And although I had played Deacon's and Preachers a few times, run thru a Rockman of course, I brought home a Viper instead due to budget. I still have this guitar, although it had many mods over the years, and currently has a Kahler tremolo and a Carvin M22 in the bridge.

     I relied on that Viper for over 12 years. It wasn't until I was living in Virginia in the early 90's that I started "aggressively" collecting Ovation solid-body guitars. Roaming around Fairfax, Virginia one day, I found 5 solid-bodies at once at the "Cash Store Pawn and Bait Shop," and picked them up at a really good price. All of a sudden, I had 6 Ovation guitars. Although I do not recall the exact models, they were mixed between Vipers, Preachers, and a Preacher Deluxe. I knew about the Breadwinner and Deacon models, so I figured that I had one model of almost every electric guitar Ovation made. Like most people I didn't even realize they made this many models at the time. Based on price and some research into availability, I started collecting. The focus of my collection was to acquire one of every model guitar in every configuration produced. I would not count color in my definition of configuration, just body style, pickups, bridges and hardware. Well today, over 100 guitars later I am close to achieving that goal. I constantly see and hear about Ovation solid-body and Storm series guitars that were produced that few people know about. But I believe that I am only missing ONE model, A Typhoon (single pickup) Bass, from my collection. I would also like to acquire both the 6 and 12 string versions of the "Bluebird" series.

     In the process of acquiring instruments and while searching for parts and accessories via the phone and Internet, I met Kim Keller and "Mary" of Kaman Music. When I finally exhausted Kim and Mary with questions, they pointed me in the direction of Alexander Pepiak of Lost Art/Vintage Instruments. Besides buying, selling and trading instruments with Al (and becoming a great friend), he introduced me to the wonder that is eBay and re-introduced me to Guitar Shows (and his mom's pies and cookies) and several additions to my Ovation collection. Along the way, thanks to the Internet, I met Analog Mike who managed to uncover some great Ovation amplification specimens for me. Steve Lutz, introduced me to the "Storm" series guitars along with much of the print material I use for reference. Sam Stathakis has provided some of the more "rare" production models and lots of spare parts to keep up with maintenance on my collection. Bill Kaman has provided me with some of the most interesting and unique instruments in my collection, helped me fill in the historical "blanks," and uncovered some of the technical mysteries of these great guitars. Some pretty entertaining anecdotes too. And finally, a deep formal bow to the regular contributors of the Ovation Fan Club who keep me entertained, and who unknowingly motivated me by their enthusiasm to actually get to work and put this site together.

     I would also like to mention Lisa. "Behind every man, is a woman that......" A woman, who when we drive into the driveway to find eleven guitar boxes delivered from UPS, just quietly helps me unpack them, and nods intently as I go on and on, about the history and uniqueness of each one and explain what a bargain it was.

     Well that's my story. I now have nearly 100 solid-body and Storm series Ovations* and several other guitars in my collection. Most are in excellent condition, and are as they were sold from the factory without any modifications.

     "How many solid-bodies could there be?" just take a look around this site. You might be surprised to know that I have very few duplicates! Yes, there were a ton of Ovation solid-bodies made, and I don't mean a bunch of the same model in different colors. As stated earlier I do not consider a different color of the same model to be a different model, except in the couple of rare cases where a model was released in a specific color for a specific person or event like the Blue Breadwinner's or Bluebird Viper's for Glenn Campbell.

     Here is insight into how a "collection" of 6 guitars grows to over 100 guitars. Consider the most popular of the Ovation solid-bodies, "The Breadwinner" or "the Axe" as it was sometimes called. It was the first electric guitar to employ active electronics successfully. It came in two pickup configurations, the details of which are contained in the appropriate section of this site. But wait, there was also the Deacon, the Limited and a 12 String Deacon. There's 5 guitars right there, and we've just begun. Also, the earlier Breadwinner had what became the standard brass bridge but had plastic saddles. So this brings us to 6 very different looking and sounding models of the "Axe" looking guitar.

     Another example is the simple "Viper" or the "poor man's Les Paul" as it was sometimes referred too. There was the standard Viper, then later the Viper III. There were three different bridge styles used on the Viper, and Viper III, bringing the total number of Viper models to 6. There was also a Viper bass made and a Viper 12-String, but these were just Prototype models never released.

     Apply this same basic trend to Preachers and the Storm Series. Add in, the Ultra GS's and Ultra GP, UKII, and PF22 and it adds up quickly.

     Now I mentioned that I started out with the goal of acquiring "one of every model guitar in every configuration," but that has since changed. There were several guitars that fall into the categories of custom guitars, prototypes, and those that I call semi-production guitars. Semi-production guitars are ones like the Blue Breadwinners that were made primarily for Glen Campbell or the twelve "Bluebird" Viper style guitars (six 6-string guitars and four 12 string guitars) also made for Glen. In this category of semi-production were a group of guitars that were probably the best solid-body guitars ever made by Ovation, the set-neck PF-22 guitars. Although several (maybe 20) of these guitars were produced, they were never officially a "production run," but I digress.

     Well if you've read this far, you should get some sort of award, I'll work on that one. Thanks for stopping by. If you would like to email me with information, or share your stories please do, or better yet, stop by Ovation Fan Club, sign up, and post the information or question there.

* Fast forward to today-ish.  I no longer have my original Viper and when  I moved  to Washington state in 2006 the guitar box count was 125.  However, many sold-bodies were packed two to a box and even while travelling I was doing guitar deals so any exact number from that peried would be just a snapshot in time.  Today I still have nearly 30 Ovations, and some others.

.....Begin Chapter #3