60's F12 on ebay? Not quite!

[f5loar]

Ebay offers a great educational opportunity to learn what is right and what is wrong about anything vintage. While it's obvious to even the uneducated mandolin pickers this is a mid 70's stock F12 with newer pickguard how did the seller/previous owner come up with the custom made F5 neck? Never saw any F5 neck like that. Appears refinished to me too. As usual with many Gibson 60's/70's instruments the serial no. is hard to pin down an exact year. Best I can tell it's a 1976 F12.
http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-GIBSON-MANDOLIN-F12-CIRCA-1960S-NICE-CONDITION_W0QQitemZ170422511789QQcmdZViewItemQQptZ LH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27adf928ad

[MikeEdgerton]

If anyone knows Jimmy Haynes (the name on the FQMS truss rod cover) we could probably get some history.

[allenhopkins]

Seller's revised the description to "60's or '70's," and added an apologetic paragraph.

[f5loar]

I came down pretty hard on him so I guess he saw my ways in so much as the previous owner is no longer talking about the mandolin. Although I did not say it was worth the $4000 BIN price. Not sure what his reserve is but suspect it's too high too. These would be worth slightly less then a mid 70's F5 if all original but when you factor in a possible refinish that gets the price way down.
Any other 70's experts out there think the body has been refinished?

[Christian]

I'm no expert, but I used to own a 70's F-12, and the finish looked just like the one shown on the pictures there, with a very inelegant sunburst in the back. The fleur de lys looks right, so does the logo which is, surprinsingly, very elegantly cut, when one considers the overall mediocre quality of these instruments (Norlin years!)