...and don't forget the Norma electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Further to our previous post, here's a Norma electric 12-string guitar complete with vibrato. Note the interesting headstock design.

Thanks, Greg!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Gordon Smith GS1 doubleneck

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Doublenecks can be ungainly, cumbersome beasts. They can be seen by some as a little ridiculous, displaying all the excesses of the pretentious prog rock era. You didn't see too many punk bands playing doublenecks, did you?

But if you have to have one, how about this beautiful Gordon Smith GS1 12+6 doubleneck with set necks and an understated natural satin finish on mahogany, and with two pairs of coil-tappable humbuckers for a wide range of tones? This auction is finishing in two days time; it has a starting price of £550 and no-one has bid yet.

Gordon Smith guitars, handcrafted in the UK, have a solid reputation for producing high quality instruments at very reasonable prices. The designs are, in the main, reminiscent of those of Gibson with the GS series having a LP Jr influence. They have the feel of bespoke handmade guitars, whilst also making excellent workhorse instuments.

G L Wilson

Edit: Looks like it sold for the starting price of £550. Someone got a bargain!

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Califone-branded Murph Squire XII from 1966

guitarz.blogspot.com:

We've previously looked at a California-made Murph Squire 12-string back in December 2009. Murph guitars don't come up on eBay all too often, but the above-pictured example - currently for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $1650 - is even rarer as it carries the "Califone" brandname and is effectively a prototype. To borrow from the eBay listing:

Califone guitars were made for Rheem Califone (the record player people) in Los Angeles to complement their range of school PA equipment. In mid 1966 Murphy Music was approached by Califone (also located in San Fernando) to build a range of guitars and amps (this is how the amp side of the business got started) that they could market to schools to compliment the audio stuff they were providing to the education department - a potential BIG money spinner for MURPH! ...BUT, as seemed to happen a lot with them, the luck of the Irish WASN'T with Pat Murphy with this venture either - Califone had a change of heart and called off the deal after 25 or so prototypes were made. They were made up of 6 strings, basses and 12 string guitars. Most were basic Squires [...] with a changed nameplate but they did do some with ‘slanted’ pickups and different Gumby-like headstocks.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1967 Epiphone Riviera 12-string

guitarz.blogspot.com

I'm also a 12-string guitars lover and this Epiphone Riviera is an extremely lovable one! This is not the first ES-335 12-string we've seen here - there was a Gibson, a Kapa, an Ovation... - but this one in dark natural finish is quite something. 

It's been produced in Gibson's factory in Kalamazoo in 1967, at the same time Gibson was selling a similar model, but actually at a cheaper price!

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Fender Electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Even those who've only been reading this blog for just a couple of months will have noticed that I have a soft spot for electric 12-strings. Here is one of the classics, the Fender Electric XII, introduced in 1965 and remaining in production for five years. The body design owes a lot to the Jazzmaster and Jaguar guitars, and the headstock is an over-sized hockey-stick shape - I can only assume so as to have somewhere prominent to display the Fender logo! (I have a Fender Strat XII and the Fender logo is somewhat lost in the middle of the small headstock that guitar has. You can imagine what an aggressive Marketing Department might think of that!)

The Electric XII was supposedly designed from the ground up to be a 12-string guitar, rather than being an adaptation of an existing 6-string guitar design. It's funny that in more recent years Fender have resorted to issusing the 12-string Stratocaster instead of this beauty. However, I'm sure the Custom Shop would knock one up for someone willing to throw the right amount of money in their direction.

The distinctive-looking split pickups are selected via a 4-way switch offering settings for neck, neck and bridge in series, neck and bridge in parallel and bridge only options.

It's funny, everyone thinks of the Gibson doubleneck as being the "Stairway to Heaven" guitar, but on the recorded version on "Led Zeppelin 4" (or "Four Symbols" if you will!) it was a Fender Electric XII that Jimmy Page used for the 12-string parts. The guitar has also been used by, amongst others, Lou Reed, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend and Bob Dylan (pictured right).

See here also for a rare left-handed version. (Well, I'd never seen one before!)

The above-pictured black example is a refurbished Electric XII and is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £1,850.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

La Boz - Japanese Burns Double Six copy

guitarz.blogspot.com:

We looked at a Baldwin Double Six 12-string last month, and at a glance the guitar pictured here would appear to be another example of a Burns or Baldwin 12-string electric (the horns look Bison-esque), but is in fact a Japanese-made copy bearing the La Boz brandname. Looking at the picture below, you'll notice that they even - very cheekily - copied the "Wild Dog" and "Split Sound" tone settings... I'm not sure how well that would have gone down in the Burns camp!

Thanks to Tom for bringing this guitar to my attention. It's currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of $499.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

From New Zealand, a pair of Jansen Invaders - how collectable exactly are these?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

At first glance, this auction looks mightily suspect. Two 1972 Jansen Invader guitars - which would appear to be not very accurate Stratocaster knock-offs and rather knocked about at that - for HOW MUCH? $12,200.00? That's over $6,000 each! Is this another case of a highly optimistic eBay seller?

What do we know about these guitars? Well, they were obviously deemed of enough importance for an example to be included in the Museum of New Zealand. The museum website tells us that:

In the 1960s, many kiwi pop guitarists owned one of these – a Jansen electric guitar. Jansens were the first solid-body electric guitars to be mass-produced in this country, and they became firm favourites with our musicians.
[...]
Their Invader model, made in 1964 and based on the famous Fender Stratocaster, was a huge success. It was named after local hit band Ray Columbus and the Invaders. For several years in New Zealand, this was the guitar to have. It outsold not only the Stratocaster but all other imported brands.

Although Jansen guitars were often modelled on overseas examples, the company introduced many of their own innovations, especially in the design of the pick-up.
[...]
Already noted for their innovative pick-up design, Jansen staff put a lot of effort into studying ‘waveforms’. Perhaps the best Jansen pick-ups were designed by Paul Crowther, their organ designer, who later became drummer in the famous kiwi band Split Enz.

In the late 1970s competition from overseas, especially Japan, was heating up, and Jansen went out of production.
[...]
Today Jansens continue to be highly sought after both locally and internationally – as collectors’ items.

So, they might be collectors' items, but do they warrant the price tag we see here? Personally, I rather like the concept behind the design. It's obviously modelled after a Fender Stratocaster but has a couple of features seemingly lifted from the Jazzmaster including the bridge and tremolo, and the individual pickup selector switches (surely more logical than Fender's 5-way switch). As someone who likes Strats but has never liked nor gotten on with the traditional Fender Strat tremolo, the Invader does appeal. But at these prices, I'm not going to be trying out one any time soon.

A quick Google search does reveal that the vintage guitar prices seen here are not without precedent. It also reveals that there was a 12-string version too!

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Made in Japan 12-string Guitar Sculpture

guitarz.blogspot.com

Any comment would be superfluous, isn't it? There's more where it comes from...

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1967 Rickenbacker 366/12 Convertible Mapleglo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's a rare Rickenbacker 366/12 Convertible from 1967 in "Mapleglo" finish. Perhaps I should have included this last month in our look at electric 12-string guitars, although this one is a particular oddity and also it's only just come up on eBay - with a Buy It Now price of $5999 (for those that are interested).

Yes, it may be a rarity, but I'm afraid for me it's a beautiful guitar with a very ugly contraption bolted to the front. And if you haven't guessed from the name, the contraption isolates the second strings in each course so that you can switch from 12-string to 6-string. It's got to be a lot less cumbersome than having a doubleneck guitar slung around your shoulders at a gig. I just wish they could have somehow concealed the contraption inside the body so that it didn't look quite so awful.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

ESP Custom Shop XJ-12

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I started the month with a series of Electric 12-string guitars, and today would like to show you yet another example from more recent years. It's an ESP XJ-12 built in ESP's Japanese custom shop circa 2003 for the Japanese market. According to the listing on eBay, these guitars were sold in Japan at 200,000 Yen in 2003 (about $2,400).

The style is obviously Jazzmaster/Jaguar influenced; in fact it reminds me of Hohner's professional Hollywood series of several years ago. The headstock with its 4+8 tuner arrangement is an unusual but attractive feature.

This seller has several of these in different finishes; I found the gold sparkle edition, pictured above, particularly eye-catching. In the photo of the translucent green XJ-12 below we can see another interesting little detail in the Strat-type output socket inset into the edge of the guitar - especially useful if you like to have your guitar lead angled upwards and tucked behind your guitar strap.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Ovation Deacon XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Further to our Electric 12-string Fiesta last Wednesday, here is my own particular favourite and one that I would dearly love to own (I still regret being outbid on one of these by a measly couple of quid in the closing seconds of an eBay auction a couple of years ago).

It's an Ovation Deacon XII, this one dating from between 1973-75. The Deacon was a sister guitar to the Breadwinner and was essentially a more upmarket version of that guitar featuring a natural finish (which looks positively red on this particular example), bound neck, fancier "diamond" fretboard inlays, and pearloid buttons on the machine heads. Otherwise, pickups, electrics, etc, are all the same as on the Breadwinner.

Alas, for anyone interested in this example, the auction has already finished. Sorry about that, but I thought it was still worthy of a blog post being such a nice example of this guitar.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Electric 12ers #6: Firstman "violin" electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Finally in today's look at electric 12-string guitars...

We're all well aware of the Violin Bass, whether it's a Gibson, a Hofner or one of a whole host of copies. Less well known are its guitar counterparts, and - I shouldn't be surprised although I've never seen one before - here we see a 12-string carrying the Firstman brandname. The seller claims it dates back to 1967. It's not a name I am aware of. I'd wager that - once again - it's a Japanese guitar. If you know differently, please let us know!

Thanks again to Jaimie for sending in today's selections! (Please note, I'm not going posting six blog items every day).

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Electric 12ers #5: Ibanez Artist electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here we have the rare 12-string version of the Ibanez Artist from 1981. It's another Made in Japan guitar and is essentially a double cutaway LP-style guitar.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Electric 12ers #4: Aria Diamond semi-hollowbody electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

The 4th of our electric 12-string guitars as chosen by The Ones That Got Away's Jaimie Muehlhausen is this rather attractive Aria Diamond semi. It's most likely inspired by the Gibson 335, but features double Florentine cutaways rather than the Venetian cutaways of the 335 design. It's also a bolt-on neck design as is common with most Japanese guitars from the 1960s.

Jaimie comments that:

...weird how the control knobs are on either side of the F-hole...

I suppose if you have two volumes and two tones they've got to go somewhere.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Electric 12ers #3: Baldwin Double Six electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's our third electric 12-string of the day. Jaimie says:

I guess Baldwins aren’t that crazy, but the green burst always gives them a slightly off-kilter look to me...

Of course, most of us would recognize this Baldwin Double Six electric XII in greenburst as being a Burns guitar, the Baldwin name having been applied following the sale of Burns London Ltd to the Baldwin Piano and Organ Company of Cincinnati in 1965. This particular example is from 1966-67.

Baldwin/Burns guitars lasted until 1970 when the Baldwin company terminated the range.

In the 1970s, after making a prototype for Hayman guitars, Jim Burns returned to making guitars in his own name using the trade names Burns UK and Jim Burns Actualizers Ltd. Burns UK produced the Flyte guitar - a favourite of ours here at Guitarz - and Jim Burns Actualizers Ltd were responsible for such models as the Steer and the Scorpion.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Electric 12ers #2: Ovation Hurricane semi-hollowbody electric XII

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Jaimie writes:

Despite once owning a 1984 Ovation Collector Series guitar, Ovations now generally scare me a bit. Their electric guitars scare me more. But this one looks fairly normal, other than being a 12 string...

Ah, Jaimie don't say that. One of my biggest regrets is that I lost out in an auction for an Ovation Deacon 12-string by a measely couple of pounds.

The guitar pictured is an Ovation Hurricane XII which pre-dates the better known solidbodies such as the Breadwinner and Deacon. I believe it is quite a find amongst Ovation collectors.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Electric 12ers #1: Washburn "Andy Parker" electric XII prototype

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This is the first in a short sequence of blog posts about electric 12-strings, as found recently on eBay by Jaimie Muehlhausen from The Ones That Got Away blog.

To start us off, we have this prototype Washburn "Andy Parker" model. Jaimie comments:

Not sure what the hell this prototype was...I know I’ve seen some high-end acoustics with this fanned string/bridge thing before...

I think Jaimie must be referring to acoustics made by Babicz, on which the strings fan out on the top behind the bridge. The difference on this Washburn is that these are the 2nd strings in courses on a twelve string and are fanning out to meet tuners at the base of the guitar body. I'm pretty sure this guitar, although supposedly a prototype, did end us as a production model because I have certainly seen one in the flesh even before.

I quite like the squared-off Explorer stylings, although for me the headstock shape doesn't quite work. I'm not sure in practice how user-friendly it would be to have six strings tuned at the head and six tuned at the body end. It also brings to mind the tuning arrangement on the B.C. Rich Bich 10-string.

G L Wilson
Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Gibson ES335 12-string

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's one you don't see very often: a rare 12-string variant of the Gibson ES335. This example is currently being offered for sale on eBay with a starting price of £5,499. The ES335 was first introduced in 1958 as the first commercially produced semi-hollowbody electric guitar having a solid centre section to the body beneath the strings and pickups.

The 12-string version of the 335 is rarely seen but has been used by artists such as Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys and Julian Cope.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Defil Jowita 12-string

guitarz.blogspot.com

A vintage semi-hollow body Polish Defil Jowita 12-string with flat top, cat's eyes soundholes, undefined pickups - some reviews I read say it sounds bizarre but not bad... 

I like the very modernist feel of this kind of design - simple, sharp, elegant -, it has something optimistic from a time you could still believe in human and guitar progress.

Bertram


Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Rickenbacker 330/12 White

guitarz.blogspot.com

Not a weirdo, not a one-off, not a rarity, not a vintage guitar, just a Rickenbacker 330/12 - because I love Rickies, 12-string guitars and white finish with a black pickguard... 

It's both classic and surprising with its unique crescent moon double cutaway, the famous R-shaped stoptail, the 3+3+3+3 headstock and the trade mark slash soundhole. Though it's been played by the greatests, it kept un-hackneyed over the last 50 years. 

It's my birthday-and-half today, I will heartily accept this guitar as a present.

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!