VEER:
BTW Chaz, that crazy Arturo Valdez 12-string I sent you pics of last year -- only eight were made (mine is #3) and all were custom jobs. I knew that Roger McGuinn and Al Stewart had had ones made, and a Swedish prog-rocker named Lalla Hansson.
But I've never been able to find pics of any of them with their Valdez 12s. (Hansson appears in many pics with his Guild F512.)
Till now! I just found an interview with McGuinn from the '80s that shows him with his Valdez 12-string. He says (at the time anyway) it's the only guitar he's ever custom ordered.
Guild connection: the late Arturo Valdez was luthier to many of California's Hollywood area music community, and did work for everyone, including John Denver (whose Guild F612 he repaired several times, including replacing the top) and Bonnie Raitt (he replaced the top on her F50). (He's also responsible for making Gene Simmon's "Battleaxe" bass, in case you wanted to know who to blame.)
There's a chapter on him in Frank Green's book, *D'Angelico, Master Guitar Builder*.
Interestingly, when Valdez began making his own custom 12-string acoustics, he copied the dimensions (though nothing else!) of the Guild F-612.
I knew none of ths when I bought mine on eBay, back when they first started. Then, if you plugged in "12 string guitar," you got about 80 hits.