Semi-hollowbody Electric Storm series introduced Twelve frets clear of body, wider neck, steel strings, dot markers with diamonds at twelfth fret. No fret markers, twelve frets clear of body, flat fingerboard. Essentially a Balladeer with diamonds at twelfth fret, Grover Rotomatics (Balladeer now has Kluson tuners), five-ply top binding.Ĭlassic introduced. The very early have no rosette, some have extra diamond fret markers at twelfth fret.ĭeluxe Balladeer introduced. Less than 100 made before February 1967 move to New Hartford factory. Has a natural top, Grover Rotomatic tuners, dot fret markers, white-black-white binding, small or thin rosette with figure-8 chain link motif and grape bunch at 4 o’clock position. The company is moved from the aerospace facilities of Bloomfield to a new location in New Hartford.īalladeer introduced. The innovation is the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties. Their first prototype has a conventional dreadnought body, with parallel front and back perpendicular to the sides. The R&D team builds and tests prototype instruments. Kaman founded Ovation Instruments.Įngineers and luthiers work to improve acoustic guitars by changing their conventional materials. One of these was Charles McDonough, who later created the Ovation Adamas model. Acoustic and Acoustic Electric 1964Ĭharles Kaman chose a small team of aerospace engineers and technicians, several of whom were woodworking hobbyists as well, to work to invent a new guitar. They may differ slightly from the first production or official introduction dates in the text. The dates in this chronology reflect actual appearances of models, determined from price lists and the recollections of sales representatives and dealers. 7 LTD Nutmeg/Anniversary Brown/Beige/Tan.
Color code follows hyphen after model number (but I am not quite sure for all of them):.5 Custom Balladeer Legend Legend 12 Custom Legend 12 Anniversary.Third digit denotes bowl depth on acoustic and acoustic electrics:.5 Acoustic electric cutaway Adamas and II/Elite/Ultra electric.
Years and models Original series from 1966 Rangeįour digits in black ink, no letter prefix
A series of tables and lists that summarise serial numbers, model codes and colors of the Ovation guitars from the beginning to the end of the 20th Century.