Resolved Which OS X release came with the late 2012 MM?

[Ungibbed]

Planning on doing a complete restore with a new SSD, the newest install media I have is OS X Tiger (obviously no good).

Sooo, is there a bootable USB image from Apple or do I need to keep the original 256GB?

 

[e1me5]

Original OS	OS X 10.8.1 (12B2100)
Later OS	OS X 10.8.2 (12C2034), 10.8.3 (12D78), 10.9 (13A603), 10.9.2 (13C64)

 

[FHoff]

That would’ve been Mountain Lion.

 

[chrfr]

Planning on doing a complete restore with a new SSD, the newest install media I have is OS X Tiger (obviously no good).

Sooo, is there a bootable USB image from Apple or do I need to keep the original 256GB?

You don’t need to do either. You can use internet recovery. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

 

[Ungibbed]

Thanks guys, didn’t know I could do Internet recovery on this old bugger

 

[Fishrrman]

I found 10.12 (Low Sierra) to be the "best runner" on my late 2012 Mini.
(in fact, it's still on it...)