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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | I have never seen a shiny bowl GC 12 with the smaller soundhole like that of the regular 12's of this vintage. Too bad the top is in such rough shape!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3702380302&category=2385 |
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Location: Scotland | I think the bridge is a later replacement, shouldn't a small-soundhole 12 have a Brazillian Rosewood winged bridge - Sam? Dave? (there's an old soul act in there somewhere) Nice guitar, you don't see too many of these. I haven't seen a GC with the signature both on the rod-cover & silk-screened between the machines. Even with those finish cracks I'll bet this sounds killer |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | I agree about the shape of the bridge, but it does *appear* to be rosewood. Early replacement? I guess the truss rod cover could've been added at any time. Now that hole..... |
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Location: NJ | If you look through the galleries of last year's Tour pictures, you'll find one of those hanging up in the long line of specimens in the Engineering Dept. |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | Really? That smaller-holed 12 looks like one of the original Ovation Balladeer 12's, not a GC model. But then, what do I know, I'm a newbie around here! |
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| The bridge is definitely changed, as is the trussrod cover. All of the 1968 Glen Campbell shiny bowl Deluxe Balladeers have a large trussrod cover that doesn't appear on any other Ovation (see pictures in the Gallery posted by samova and standingovation), and the twelve-string has the same trussrod cover. Although the six-string has Glen Campbell's signature on the trussrod cover, the twelve-strings do not, because the signature is written on the peghead. Thus, the trussrod cover on this guitar is from a six-string, and quite likely from a 1127 or 1627 as the shape is post-1969.
This is the second smallhole GC twelve-string that has been offered on eBay in the past two years, with the last one sold by a Music-Go-Round in Washington state in March, 2002. I don't know how much it sold for because the auction was ended early before I had a chance to
bid. It, incidentally, had a top crack.
The interesting thing about this particular model are the gold-plated Kluson Deluxe sealed tuners. All of the 1968 shiny bowl twelve-string GC's that I have seen with the regular size soundhole have gold plated unsealed Klusons, which is the same tuner that appeared on the 1968 Balladeer twelve-strings, albeit in chrome. The gold-plated sealed Kluson Deluxe tuners did not appear on the Glen Campbell twelve-string as a standard feature until 1969 or 1970.
This is, indeed, a rare guitar,and extremely difficult to find. However, due to the changed bridge and trussrod cover, as much or more than the finish checking, the guitar's value is greatly reduced, certainly not anywhere near the estimated value posted by the seller. |
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| Correction: Sam does not have a picture of his 1968 GC shiny bowl Deluxe Balladeer in his Gallery, but Dave does. |
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Location: SoCal | Regarding the tuners on this guitar, I've got the original catalog on the Glen Campbell guitars and the 12 string has the sealed Klusons. The Pacemakers of the time had the open tuners, but I really believe that the GC 12 always had the upgraded sealed Klusons.
By the way, I'd bet real money that this guitar is a 68 and one of the very early GC 12's. By the time Ovation did a catalog (promo sheet?) on them, they had already gone to the standard size sound hole. And when Glen was playing one in the premier episode of the Goodtime Hour in January 1969, his guitar had a regular sized soundhole.
Somebody should buy this and send it back to the factory. They could strip and refinish the top and it would be magnificent. |
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| Paul,
Look closely at your "Glen Campbell Plays Ovation Guitars" brochure, and you will see that that the pictured twelve-string guitar has the same open Klusons of the Balladeer twelve-string, only gold-plated. It's not until the 1970 catalog that the GC 12 is pictured with closed tuners.
Also, if you have the 1968-69 blue one page front-and-back "My Name's On These Guitars" sheet with the GC models you will see the same guitar with open tuners. |
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| Actually, the tuners are not exactly the same, because the Balladeer twelve-string tuners have white plastic buttons, whereas the GC has metal buttons. And, incidentally, although these tuners are genuine Klusons, the open tuners do not carry the Kluson name, nor do they have any markings at all. |
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Location: SoCal | I stand corrected on the open tuners that were on the Pacemakers. I know about the all gold Klusons because I had a set on my 69 GC 12 before I upgraded to the mini Schallers used during the 70's on the GC 12's. |
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| Only one more reference to the GC twelve-string and then I let this topic rest. On page 107 of "The History of the Ovation Guitar" by Walter Carter, there is a large color photo of Glen Campbell playing an early large-soundhole GC 12 with gold-plated Kluson open tuners. However, by this time the trussrod cover has been changed to the smaller, standard size. |
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Location: SoCal | My night for being corrected. I looked at the pic and you are correct. I think I need a margarita. |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | Damn! This IS rocket science!! I wonder if Kim & Company could restore this thing?? |
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Location: Atlanta,Ga. | The one thing that concerns me about this guitar is that the seller calls it a balladeer? He must be reading this from the label.The GC models never said balladeer on the label.They were clearly marked GC model on them.Also the small soundhole was typical of a balladeer model not a GC.Has anyone asked him what the label reads?I wonder if the neck is from another guitar and the body from another.If you take into account that the bridge,possibly tuners? and trus cover have been modified,how much more has been done to this guitar.I personally would not buy this guitar.. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Sam, The first GC 12 strings did have the small smound hole. There have been I think 2 on ebay in the past few years. You're right about the label. The GC 6 string just says "Glen Campbell" on the label. I'm assuming the 12 string says the same of possibly "Glen Campbell 12 String". Could be a GC neck on a balladeer body. In either case, I agree with you that this is a somewhat bastardized guitar. Dave |
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Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | Bob, for the sake of discussion, the other GC 12 that was on Ebay also had closed tuners. It also had the large, plain truss rod cover.
However, if "Balladeer" is written on the tag of the one currently on Ebay, that would mean there has indeed been a body swap done somewhere along the way.
Here is a headstock pic of the first one.
Wayne
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | I e-mailed the owner and here's what he said was on the label:
Serial- A-583-A
Approval: 1118-4
Pat. Applied for
1118-4 is a GC, right? But what is "approval?" |
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Location: Atlanta,Ga. | Again,this is very strange becuase the early shiny bowls especially one with a A-three digit serial number did not have model numbers.The label would read "Glen Campbell model" not 1118-4..I feel this is some kind of Frankinstein...model 111F-4 |
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| Although the possibility exists that this is a "Frankenstein" guitar as Sam as proposed, personally, I believe that the guitar is original, with some modificatons. As other examples have surfaced (thanks for the headstock picture, Wayne) with the Balladeer body and GC neck this is probably a factory setup and not a mating of two guitars.
With regard to the label issue, the owner states that the guitar was made in Bloomfield, CT. This implies that the label is a Bloomfield label and this is logical because they continued to use the Bloomfield labels until they ran out, sometime in 1968.
The model name on the Bloomfield labels was pre-printed and not typed in ("Balladeer", "Deluxe Balladeer", "Josh White" and "Classic"). Therefore, if the guitar has a Bloomfield label it could not state the model as "Glen Campbell" because the label would already have a model designation. It is, thus, feasible that the label states "Model - Balladeer" (pre-printed in script and not typed), with "1118-4" listed under Approval.
As an example, I have an early Balladeer twelve-string with the Bloomfield label that has "Deluxe Balladeer" printed as the model name. On the Approval line it states "12-String". Obviosuly there was never a "Deluxe Balladeer 12-String".
I have a later Balladeer twelve-string with the Bloomfield label that has "Balladeer" printed on the label as the model name. At that point in history it appears that they really didn't care what the label said. They weren't trying to be logical and systematic, they were struggling to put out guitars that would sell. |
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Location: Athens, GA & Gnashville | >>At that point in history it appears that they really didn't care what the label said. They weren't trying to be logical and systematic, they were struggling to put out guitars that would sell.<<
Well said, Bob. That has been my experience, too. |
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Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | The rosette must have been inlaid on these, was it not?
Wayne |
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Location: SoCal | Now that I can answer. Yup, at that time, the rosettes were all inlaid. |
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Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | What about the -A suffix in the serial #...is that commom?
Wayne |
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Ebay VERY Early GC 12?
