Ovation | Late 70’s Ovation Magnum
Vintage late 70s Ovation Bass Magnum made in the U.S.A. With the classic Ovation headstock and very unique double off-set cutaway body, it stands out against the rest. It has some great tone an playability. All of the parts are original and are functional. The finish is original and is in good condition with no crackeling and only minor indentations along the bottom of the body. Along the headstock there are some minor chips and the body has some very small dents. Overall the condition is good.
TYPE: Double off-set cutaway body, Active 4-string
Starting this exceptional specimen at $1400.00 with non-original hardshell case…$1300.00 without the case. This is an probably an early one….they made these 1974-1979 I think, and out of the five digit serial numbers, this one comes in under the 800 mark. Picked this up off eBay maybe 18 years ago. It was really dirty and the case was in bad shape, but once I did my initial clean up I found that there were very few real issues. I completely disassembled it and went to work. The body was easy…overall great shape. Did a quick, minimal buff out and got the body looking mint. The pickguards on these are somewhat easy to break, usually where the jack is mounted, and someone steps on your cord and rips it out. Anyway the pickguard is mint…as are the knobs and selector switch cover. Both pickups work as they should, and the chrome is great. Controls all work as they should as well, and I coated the electronics cavity with carbon conductive shielding paint to make the already “pretty quiet” electronics even quieter. The other problem area on these is the aluminum bridge and pickup surround.
The finish on these two parts doesn’t age well. I very carefully sanded off the old finish and applied two applications of Gunkote, which is a charcoal grey, almost black, baked on ceramic like finish, similar to Duracoat. Gunkote is a great finish, and 18 years later there is no noticeable wear, and it looks great on this bass…much better than the factory finish over the aluminum. Next I moved on to the neck, which after a gentle buff out looked as close to mint as the body does. IIRC, the fingerboard on these is some type of dyed or impregnated hardwood or composite blend. They maybe called it “ebinol”… not 100% sure. It looks sort of like ebony, but tighter grained. I don’t think the original owner played this bass much at all, and he also didn’t do any kind of maintenance. The one area that suffered a little was the fingerboard.
There were the beginnings of a few small hairline cracks up past the twelfth fret. A little fingerboard oil over its early years would have prevented this. What I’ve always done to stop the crack from getting worse, is to apply a very tiny amount of super glue to seal it up and fill it in. This works fantastic but leaves a slightly shiny area where you level it out and buff. I wasn’t too worried about it because you’d never see it unless you were a foot or less away. I had an Alembic once that I did the same type of repair on, and I spent a few extra hours on it and was able to get it to where you couldn’t even see it, but on this bass I left it alone. I’ll try to show it in one of the pics. Don’t know what else to say about this bass…it’s beautiful and almost perfect. No fret wear really, could use a proper set up with your favorite strings…there are Dean Markley Blue Steels on it currently. Truss rod works great in tandem with the inlaid carbon fiber strips in the neck. The string mute works perfectly. It has Dunlop strap locks. Tuning pegs are original and work as they should. I have almost all of the original factory paperwork, which is slightly moisture damaged, but not bad. Not very many hours on this bass. I have a very sturdy aftermarket case that this bass fits safely in. It weighs a ton…even heavier than the original Ovation case that was beyond hope.
If you don’t want the case I’ll knock $100 off the price and you can maybe get one of the (Eastwood?) reissue cases and it would probably fit well. Anyway a minty close to all original Magnum. Probably BETTER than when it left the factory! I really don’t want to ship this. Between the heavy bass and heavier case, it would cost a fortune. Hope to find a buyer in or around Washington State. The best way to ship a guitar like this is to remove the strings and neck, ship the neck in one box, and then ship the body in a second box, and forget about the case. This would be safer and cheaper than shipping the bass and case together. It’s a slam dunk to put it back together upon it’s arrival. But as I said, I would really prefer to sell this locally, and anyone considering asking me to ship it should be ready for a price upgrade. I’ll upload more pics this week, but again if you’re local, you’ll really want to come see it in person anyway. It is located about halfway between Seattle and Spokane.
