The Ovation Breadwinner was launched towards the end of 1972 at a price of $349 - a few months before the launch of the Ovation Deacon. Both had the same body shape - designed to resemble an axe, and to be comfortable to use seated, for studio use. Both had 2 octave 24 fret mahogany necks. Initially it was available in , and was fitted with large single coil pickups. An upgraded version was displayed at the autumn 1974 NAMM show - and from then it featured double-coil 12-pole pickups, "20dB quieter than Humbuckings".
The Deacon was very much a deluxe version of the Breadwinner.
| Model | Breadwinner 1251 |
| Available | 1972-79 |
| Pickups | single coil until 1975, 12-pole double coil thereafter |
| Scale | 24 3/4" |
| Body | Mahogany body, length 39 1/2", width 14 1/2", depth 1 5/8" |
| Neck | Bolt-on two-piece Honduras bound mahogany neck, with ebony, diamond-shaped dot inlaid fingerboard |
| Width at nut | 1 11/16" |
| Electrics and controls | FET preamp, 1 volume and tone control, mid-range switch, pickup selector switch |
| Hardware | 12:1 machineheads, brass bridge. Chrome plated throughout. |
| Finishes | Textured finish - 1251-5 Black, 1251-6 White, 1251-7 Tan, Red and Blue (until 1976) |
 Bread winner
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 Ovation keeps on truckin |
 Ovation Rock |
| "take it to a gig and you'll be the Breadwinner" |
Early Ovation advertisement announcing their first solid-body electric guitar, the Breadwinner |
Psychedelic imagery and a short poem combine to create this early seventies Breadwinner advert
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 Ovation Solid Bodies - Theyre Worth A Try
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 Ovation's great guitar giveaway |
 How Ovation took a hint from the 50s
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| Ovation Solid Bodies - They're Worth A Try
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Mid seventies advert/competition to win either a sold-body electric Ovation Breadwinner, or an acoustic Balladeer |
1977 Rose-Morris Ovation advert. Rose-Morris were the UK distributors for Ovation guitars |
The pickups and active circuitry of the Breadwinner are designed to give a very wide tonal range. The series II pickups are described as follows
| These pickups are not just another copy of the Humbucking pickups, but instead were designed by Ovation engineers to give you the quietest full-range pickups to date. These sensitive pickups have bright, sustaining treble and full, clean, rich bass that will deliver some real raunchy sounds |
The controls consist of a volume and tone potentiometer, pickup selector switch and band rejection filter to cut midrange. This is how the circuitry is descibed in the 1975 solid-bodies catalogue
| This is where we have it all together - we've built in FET preamplifier that has simplified controls and delivers the fullest, widest range of sound - and all right where it belongs - at your fingertips. The circuitry also has a band rejection filter and is volume compensated on all controls. All controls are isolated in th circuitry so that changes in vilume or amplifier impedance have no effect on the tone control. |
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