Encore Rickenbacker 12-String Copy

Probably late 60s, made in Japan. Semi - Hollow body, bass side triangular curved port hole, two humbucking pickups, volume and tone for each and a fifth knob to blend the volumes ( i think....) when both were engaged. Standard 3 pos toggle switch a la Gibson. Sunburst green finish with a crazy faux herringbone binding on the body rear, bolt on neck with very cheesy rosewoodesque fretboard, small frets. roller bridge and a chromed trapeze tailpiece (big letter "E" in place of the Real McCoy's "R"). White plastic bind on fingerboard. 4 bolt Neck was pretty fat, unsure of wood. Assuming it even was wood! Definitely laminated body, fairly heavy for a hollowed instrument. Cool raised pickguard typical of a Real Rick.

At the time I was playing a lot of rockabilly and western swing. I wanted a hollowbody but didn't have the dough so I got this. My ideal was a Gretsch a la Eddie Cochran but this did not come close. Un-plugged it was extremely Banjo like (and NOT in a good way!), amplified, it sounded thin and flat (when it didn't go dead and need another resolder, which it did each month or so.). I later discovered that when fed into a high gain amp in place of my squeaky clean little fender, the pickups unleashed a lovely microphonic howl in concert with the hollow body, great for garage band proto punk junk sounds. There was a good mix of tones from the pickups, bright to dark, but still pretty flat, no depth or richness once past the nice feedback.

Purchased from the local town Beatle freak (got lots of other cool stuff from him as well!) to support his drug habit. I paid $25 and another $25 to the local town guitar god for a set up (to put food in his kid's mouths). I ripped off the slotted sideways tuners and had the guy cut a new 6 string bone nut. He got the action fairly low.
But it was still hard to play and always had difficulty staying in tune. When I sold it I threw on a set of new Schaller sealed tuners which kept it in tune but made it pretty neck heavy!

I used to get vibrato effects during the aforemention feedback by gently tugging the headstock; I doubt this guitar would have held up long as it did had the neck not been overbuilt for 12 strings. Nevertheless steady gigging would have demolished it (I was a couch player at the time) for sure.

hah!

Been playing a long time, this guitar taught me a lesson in my youth - that one may not need to pay oodles of money for a flashy instrument but one does need to rise above a certain level of crap to maintain one's desire to keep playing! But I had fun with it. When I started trying to learn Charlie Parker solos on guitar I knew it had to go (I replaced it with a Danelectro - go figure!)