Fender Electric XII Model 12 String Solid Body Electric Guitar (1966), made in Fullerton, California, serial # 169307, Candy Apple Red lacquer finish, alder body, maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, original black tolex hard shell case.
This is a beautiful later-1966 custom-color example of the Fender Electric XII, finished in the flashy and always-popular Candy Apple Red metallic lacquer. While not one of Leo Fender's best-remembered creations the Electric XII is nonetheless is a superbly engineered, great-sounding and extremely practical 12-string. Introduced at the July 1965 NAMM Show at the dawn of the CBS/Fender era the Fender XII married the popular Jaguar/Jazzmaster style offset body to a new 12-string neck with a distinctive extended "hockey stick" headstock. The neck itself is typically Fender; slim and very comfortable. These are often considered the best-playing electric 12s of the 1960s, and with good reason. Custom color examples like this are fairly rare, and particularly striking looking guitars with the elongated matching headstock.
The electronics are unique with two pickups each with two separate coil units, as pioneered by the Precision Bass but with smaller Mustang-style coils. These are mated to a 4-way lever switch offering each pickup by itself and the two together both in and out of phase. The bridge is a marvel of Leo Fender's engineering prowess; it strings through the body with 12 staggered-height intonation-adjustable saddles and is generally considered the best unit of its kind.
This gleaming red guitar dates to later 1966, past the peak production period for the model. The volume pot is a later replacement but the original tone pot is coded to the 30th week of 1965. The neck is date-stamped to July 1966 marking this as one of the first with the pearloid block markers CBS added to the more deluxe Fender guitars at this time. The binding along the fingerboard edges was a slightly earlier alteration. The pickups in this guitar are hand dated to July and August of 1966 so the guitar was probably assembled in the early fall of that year.
With all this original engineering, Fender somewhat missed the boat a bit on the electric 12-string fad and by the time the Electric XII was ready to ship in quantity by late 1965 Rickenbacker had already reaped the bulk of benefit of the Byrds' and Beatles' popularization of the sound. By the fall of 1966 the electric 12-string market was somewhat saturated; Fender was still building Electric XII's when then word filtered back to the sales office that they were not selling as well as expected. This later block-neck example in a Custom Color is actually noticeable rarer than the earlier dot-neck version.
For all that, the guitar is a beautifully engineered design and an excellent-sounding stage or recording instrument, albeit without exactly capturing the Rick's trademark jangle. Led Zeppelin, the Velvet Underground, The Move, The Kinks, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, the Baja Marimba Band, and many others have made classic recordings with this model, and its full potential is perhaps still untapped. This candy-colored example is one of the cooler ones we have had, certainly flashier with its pearloid-trimmed fingerboard and a much more dramatic looking hot rod compared to its sunburst brethren if identical sounding!
Overall length is 42 7/8 in. (108.9 cm.), 14 in. (35.6 cm.) wide at lower bout, and 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm.) in depth, measured at side of rim. Scale length is 25 1/2 in. (648 mm.). Width of nut is 1 11/16 in. (43 mm.).
This is certainly a striking looking Electric XII, finished out in one of Fender's boldest metallic paint jobs with the 3-layer white pickguard and the matching red headstock. The binding and pearloid block inlay on the neck are often considered a CBS mistake, but they do give the guitar an even flashier look than earlier examples.
This guitar remains practically all original, showing some mostly fairly minor wear overall. The all-original finish has hardly any lacquer checking but does show dings, dents, scratches and handling marks overall. The heaviest are a few larger chips along the body edges, and some small chips on the edges of the headstock. The back of the neck is relatively clean with only a couple of small dings and dents.
The vibrant Candy Apple red finish is still deep and bright with very little fade to the color. This guitar shows no alterations except for the replaced volume pot and one of the bridge saddle screws was also replaced long ago. The fingerboard and original frets have only minor wear and this is a very good player with a brighter sound than some of these we have had. Overall this remains a lovely package of timeless 1960s jangle still residing in its original black Tolex Fender HSC which has some wear overall with but is solid and fully functional. Overall Very Good + Condition.
