The "Hockey-Stick" of the Beat Generation!

This great custom color twelve-string guitar weighs just 8.30 lbs. and has a nut width of just over 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 25 1/2 inches. Solid alder body, maple neck, and rosewood fretboard with 21 frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. "Hockey-stick" headstock in Candy Apple Red. Headstock decal with Fender logo in gold with black trim, with "ELECTRIC XII" in black below it, and "PAT. 3,143,028 2,960,900 3,177,283 & PAT. PEND." in black in two lines below that. One "bracket" string guide. Six-on-a-side Fender "F" tuners with octagonal metal buttons. Four-bolt neck plate with large Fender backward "F" logo and with serial number ("120656") between the top two screws. The neck is dated "12 FEB 66 B" and the potentiometers are dated "304 6542" and "304 6545" (Stackpole, October and November 1965). Two powerful black split single-coil pickups with outputs of 9.57k and 8.96k. Three-layer (white/black/white) plastic pickguard with seventeen screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) and jack socket, all on metal plate adjoining pickguard, plus one four-way rotary selector switch on pickguard. Black plastic knobs with white numbering and silver tops. Fender twelve-saddle combined bridge/tailpiece. There is a some slight finish checking and a few very small "dings" on the sides, the most noticeable being on the treble horn. There are also a few small surface chips on the face of the headstock, otherwise this super rare custom color twelve-string is in exceptionally fine condition. Housed in its original Fender black hardshell case with orange plush lining (9.00).

The Electric XII hit the music stores in the summer of 1965. "Electric 12-strings had recently been popularised by The Beatles and The Byrds, who both used Rickenbackers, so Fender joined in the battle with their own rather belated version. There were no surprises in the guitar's body -- it was that familiar offset-waist design again (and at $349 the 12-string was pitched at the same price as the Jazzmaster). The Electric XII had a long headstock, necessary to carry the extra machine heads, finishing in a distinctive curved end that has earned it the nickname 'hockey-stick'. An innovation was the Electric XII's 12-saddle bridge which allowed for precise adjustments of individual string heights and intonation, a luxury hitherto unknown on any 12-string guitar. But the 12-string craze of the 1960s was almost over and the Electric XII proved shortlived, lasting in the line only until 1968" (Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Fender Book, p. 44).