Welcome aboard, Nitro!
"Blonde maple Guild 12-string" was born with the F412 in '68. "Blonde" was the finish name for an unstained maple body and spruce top.
F412 was 17" lower bout true jumbo arched maple back. 1-13/16 nuts are the most common but earlier 12's (F212/312) were known to have almost 2" nuts very early on, '64-'65. And Guild nut widths varied slightly due to production methods and tolerance in any case.
Not recalling off the top of my head if they ever built a maple flatback version of that size (don't think so), and the next step down is the 16" lower bout "F40" based body, also arched maple back.
In fact I can't recall 'em ever doing a 16" maple 12-er until New Hartford with the Doyle Dykes DD12Mce, old reverb ad linked here for pics:
https://reverb.com/item/2089322-doyle-dykes-signature-guild-dd-12-mce
And it's a flatback, not that I think that's a bad thing.
But very low production something like 20 IIRC?
Still if budget's wide open, and you want to hold out for something a little more comfortable than that big ol' 17" wide and 5" deep jumbo body (an increasingly common malady around here), now you know that it
is out there, if you like the specs.
(Shown in listing, in fact, just realized that listing was from our own member Fixit, "Jacobs Custom Guitars", so the specs are to be trusted, same as the 6-string models with that very slightly shorter 25-1/4" scale vs the normal 25-5/8. Couldn't find 'em in a catalog just now.)
Ahhh, but if you're 5'12" or taller and jumbos are just fine for you there was also the venerable JF30-12, basically a blinged-down version of the F412. Dot fretboard inlays for example. A chesterfield instead of a G-shield on the headstock. A more conservative aesthetic.
And a lo-o-o-ong period of production (like 15 years) so come up fairly often.
But good enough for guys like Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, as the first guy that comes to mind.
So there's your crash course, to the best of my increasingly erroneous memory, in (US built) Guild maple 12-ers.
Hope it helps.
EDIT: Whoopsie, almost forgot, in early '90's F412 became JF65-12 amid a confusing period of model name changes, but that designation held until '01 when Westerly closed. IRRC the later ones got mahogany necks rather than maple, for some folks it's an aesthetic issue. 'hog's actually very dimensionally stable though, so still an ideal wood for necks. (forgive me if you already now about stuff like that, but again, just to let you know what's out there)
Corona first year '02 saw the return of the F412 name, and JF30-12 was continued as well. Coronas get bad raps, don't let that fool you.
Member
@Cougar has a particularly nice sunburst, more to give you an idea of the quality of the tops,
great silking on his. As well as my own D40.
That's actually pretty true of most of 'em, back to the late '70's, at least, and I suspect Corona "inherited" a lot of raw stock from Westerly, it only makes sense.
OK,
now class dismissed!
