Vintage Aria 12-string

[jaykemurd]

Quick background: This guitar was recently given to me by a relative.
Supposedly it was brought over from Japan by a soldier. It appears to have had a rough life, but made it to me in playable condition.

Someone obviously "converted" it to a six-string, the bridge-work is shoddy at best, haha.

I have never seen an acoustic with this type of bridge system...I don't even know what to call it. Pretty unique and seems to give the guitar a unique sound. Another interested thing is there is no serial number. Appears as though there never was one. The label is damaged, but the model number is 6814.
According to the Aria Database it's from 1977.

What can you tell me about this vintage axe?

[jaykemurd]

A bit of an update:
The relative that passed this guitar on to me was positive they received it prior to 72', so now I've really got no history on this guitar.

Could this be some rare, one-of-a-kind or something?

[VintAxe]

I don't think so jaykemurd. Your 12 string appears in my 1969 Aria pages from a Targ and Dinner counter catalog. If it's being distributed by Targ and Dinner, it's likely not rare. It was sold as a student grade instrument for $90 back in the day.

The trapeze tailpiece isn't that unusual on acoustic guitars especially 12 string models. A standard 6 string guitar with medium gauge strings exerts around 150 pounds of force on the bridge, of course 12 strings will add to that tension. Guitars with a standard fixed bridge are braced on the inside to withstand this force. Another solution is to transfer this force to the tail block by using a trapeze tailpiece like your guitar has. There are pros and cons to both solutions and clearly a fixed bridge with bracing is considered the best solution by most builders. You just have an example of the other solution which requires less labor to build and therefore can be built and sold for less money.

[Spud1950]

Someone modified the guitar by adding the chrome tailpiece to secure the strings instead of by using bridge pins. Here's one in it's original state.



Nice guitar,decent quality,but it's not one of a kind or that rare.

Edit - Well,looks like VintAxe and me posted at the same time. The guitar in that catalog does look the same, having the same tailpiece but dot fretboard inlays instead of blocks. Here's another picture identified as a Aria 6814,same as the other picture I posted,no tailpiece. This one is said to be a 1977 model. Looks like yours is a version that came between the 1969 catalog version and these later versions.

[VintAxe]

I think the tailpiece is original spud. Go to the Acoustic Catalogs section and check the 1969 Targ and Dinner pages.

[Spud1950]

Right you are. You beat me to the post while I was doing my first edit.

[jaykemurd]

Well dang! So it was made no farther back that 69' and is nothing special.
Damn, you've crushed my dreams.

Oh well, I appreciate the explanation fellas.
I don't want to sell it...but out of curiosity how much would it be worth today? 200 dollars?

I have to admit, it sounds pretty damn good...needs a little work and I can turn this into a stand-up guitar.

Thanks again!

[jakrabit]

I have the same guitar with a different finish as seen below. This guitar is 100% original. It was my fathers guitar and was purchased in St. Catharines Ontario in 1964. The PAN guitar on the left was purchased for my brother in 1965.

The labels in both guitars have been torn out and nothing readable is left. The 12 string has the number 13662 stamped on the 19th fret of the neck

I would appreciate any further information that anyone has on these guitars as I am currently in need of a new tailpiece for the 12 String.

[slohand]

I have the same tailpiece on my 12. It only strung with 6 now. I think mine is late 60s.