The Preacher 1281

Ovation had learned a hard lesson with the failure of their groundbreaking Breadwinner and Magnum. In the 70’s ergonomic design was out of place, what the guitarist wanted was conventional [Gibson and Fender] design. In the late 70’s they introduced a new set of guitars – the Preacher, the Viper and a reshaped Magnum Bass.
The body shape of both the Viper and the Preacher was essentially a downsized version of the Ovation acoustic outline - ie guitar shaped.
The Preacher was symmetrical with a double cutaway mahogany body. It was fitted with a pair of humbuckers, each with it own volume and tone controls, stereo and mono output and a three way selector switch.. [choice of bridge, neck or both pickups.] It had a small black/white pickguard, which on earlier models hade the name “Preacher” engraved. The neck was two octave with an unbound rosewood fingerboard and dot inlays. The bridge/tailpiece assembly was a tri-mount system, similar to that on the earlier Ovation models. This evolved over the lifetime of the guitar from a mixture of plastic and metal to an all metal one. The pickups were Ovation’s own development, smaller than was usual, with metal covers and two rows of exposed adjustable polepieces.
Following close on the heals was a Deluxe [1282] version. This was identified by a bound fingerboard with abalone block inlays and gold hardware. A large larger pickguard was added upon which the controls were mounted. Like the earlier Breadwinner It was fitted with active electronics FET preamp and it controls were the similar - a single volume compensated tone control, a single volume control and a three-way selector switch. A series/parallel switch replace the Breadwinner notch filter switch.
There was also a 12 string version that was essential the same. It was fitted with a twelve-string neck and a bridge/tailpiece to fit the extra strings. Diamond inlays ?

It is a little ironic that Ovation having conformed to design pressures of the marketplace should fail here because of an unnecessary bit or “difference” Ovations pickups were smaller than standard and although all their pickups were interchangeable, other brands of pickups would not fit into an Ovation. That was Ovations the design aim, but it backfired. Companies that spe­cialized in after-market pickups, like DiMarzio and Duncan, were fueling a fad among guitar players for changing pickups frequently. A guitarist couldn’t put any pickup into an Ovation guitar except another Ovation pickup, and it greatly hindered sales of Ovation electrics and ultimately to the demises of both the Preacher and the Viper. 1983 .