A tale of two Yamaha SG-12 solidbody 12-stringers

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Regular Guitarz readers may remember that back in September I posted about a vintage Yamaha SG-12 offered for sale on eBay which had been rather disturbingly and tastelessly customised. I ended that particular blog post by saying:

There was recently another SG-12 on eBay which, alas, was incomplete - there were parts missing such as bridge saddles. That particular guitar sold quite cheaply. It'd be nice to think that whoever bought that one, could buy this example too and assemble a single Yamaha SG-12 as it should be and keep the rest as spares.

Well, imagine my surprise when reading in an email from Chris Fesker that this was indeed what happened and the above pictured Yamaha SG-12 is the resulting restored guitar put together from parts from the two donor instruments. But what happened to the left over parts which obviously included perfectly serviceable body and neck? It'd be a shame to let those lie around unused. I'll let Chris tell you the whole story:

Hi Gavin - my name is Chris Fesker, and I was looking for pictures of Yamaha SG12 guitars, when I ran into your blog...

http://guitarz.blogspot.com/2011/09/vintage-yamaha-sg-12-twelve-string.html

I am the one that bought that guitar, along with the other incomplete SG12 you mentioned that sold around that same time. I did combine the two, using all the good parts from the 'TRoth' guitar to repair the sunburst. Rather than sell the parted out TRoth guitar, and having noticed that the original red finish was still below the new paint, I stripped the black and gold repaint to the original red, and re-built it to the best of my abilities.

Here's some links to some pictures of both in their newly repaired state.
Red SG12 - http://s178.photobucket.com/albums/w263/sonichris_photos/Red%201967%20Yamaha%20SG12/
Sunburst SG12 - http://s178.photobucket.com/albums/w263/sonichris_photos/1967%20Yamaha%20SG-12/

I thought you might get a kick out of seeing them.

Thanks
Chris

I did indeed get a kick out of seeing the photos of Chris's restored SG-12s; it's so good to see something like that having seen so many bad bodge jobs, half-arsed relics, and crappy "customisations" carried out on otherwise beautiful vintage instruments.

Whilst the red (formerly "TRoth") SG12 pictured above isn't an accurate restoration, it has been finished with respect and reverence to the original design. I like the use of two Jaguar pickups - surely these are in keeping with this style of guitar, and where would you find the original Yamaha pickups outside of buying a re-issue SGV-300 and cannibalising it (which would be a shame in itself)? It certainly has an authentic vintage vibe and I would like to congratulate Chris on a job well done!

Happy New Year to all our readers!

G L Wilson

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