Ovation 1612 Deluxe Balladeer

What I have invited this time is a 1981, (proper US made, not Applause or Celebrity), Ovation 1612 Deluxe Balladeer. On one of the auction was a fairly experienced looking bowl backed Ovation acoustic electric Guitar in black with an ordinary big central soundhole rather than the 32 little ones on the epaulettes, I know they are suppose to be good for stopping feedback and I do like the design, (after all I have 2 Ovation applause Ukuleles with them; plus a Chinese kind of copy Ukulele), but they have now become a little clichéd so I was happy with the idea of a more standard looking one. I have always wanted a proper Ovation acoustic, but they are always out of my budget, like the Gibsons and the Fenders, so I thought it was worth a go; though I fully expected it to go for double the price I was willing to go plus fees. The only thing in my favour was it's distressed look, the white patches of wear(?) around the edges particularly were suspicious. Still it started low and though there was a couple of bids bumping the price up it still went for less than half what I was expecting, to the Pony Guitar Sanctuary at Ukulele Corner! (this worried me a bit because the low price might be because all of the people there in person could see it really was a clunker?)

Now it's here, the Ovation, whilst looking a bit "distressed", is bloody lovely! I don't know about the electrics, (yet), but acoustically it has without doubt the best tone of all my acoustics, and the bigger proper sound hole means it is of a proper volume, not a bit muffled like the little epaulette holes on the more iconic looking Ovations.