The Koreans

Celebrity by Ovation

   1987 - 1990

GTX

At the end of the 1980’s  Ovation launched a range of solid bodied electric guitars manufactured atin their Korean factories.   They were having success with the lower price range of acoustic guitars under the Celebrity label and decided on one more attempt to break into the solid bodied market.  

There is little information on this short lived venture, 1987-90, and a good deal of confusion.

There are two similar yet different ranges of guitars: the Celebrity by Ovation range and the GTX range.  Although very similar their are small difference of style between the two.  The GTX had a sleeker  body and a “pointier” headstock.  

In style, I would place the GTX as a later developement but information from Ovation contradicts this.  They provided the following information on the Celebrity:

The GTX model AR33TR dates back to 1990 when it retailed for $499.50 USD in the standard black finish. The information available is very limited, here's what we have:

A 24 fret (2 octave) long-scale neck gives this model an extended playing range. The double cutaway body has a beveled treble cutaway for easy access to all 24 frets. The AR33 series features 2 covered single-coil XK110 pickups and a covered high-output XK120 humbucking pickup. This model comes with a 5-way pickup selector switch, a coil tap switch for the bridge position humbucker and a master volume and tone control. Each AR33 is fitted with a licensed Floyd Rose tailpiece and double-locking fine tuning tremolo. The fingerboard is Indian Rosewood with exclusive mountain inlay pattern and jumbo frets. Both headstock and fingerboard are fully bound. The neck is Canadian maple and the body is solid Indonesian basswood. It has a popular reverse six-in-line headstock.

Other finishes available included Red Torch Top, Tiger White, Tiger Purple, Crackle Pink, Random Color and White Splatter that retailed at $549.50 USD. The Marble Blue with magenta finish retailed for $579.50 USD.”

Ultra GS C1982                         Celebrity C1990?                        GTX C1987?

Ovation had started production in Korea to reduce production ion cosst.  Like the Celebrity acoustic guitars, the Korean range of solid bodies was an budget priced model.. Despite this , also like the acoustics, they were still a quality built instrument.  

A look at the price of these instruments will show that they were not low budget priced, at up to $600, which may explain their failure to make nay inroads into the market.

Fire grey 13              Red 2            Pink 20           Yellow 21         Green 22          Black 5         Blue 8       

Metallic red 9           Silver Crackle CS        Snake Skin SK