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Can anyone tell me which Hofner model this is, please? My own best guess is one of the colorama models from around 1960.

The photos are too small to see any detail, but from what I can see I would say it's modern (or relatively) guitar and not 60's.

Chas.

Sorry about the pics, I took them with my phone and had the settings all wrong. I played this guitar on Saturday and it's definitely a Hofner and not modern.

The picture is of a Chinese-made Hofner, probably from a batch made around five years ago. The features, including humbucking pickups, bridge and tailpiece copied directly from the Gibson Les Paul Standard, would never have been seen on a Hofner from the 1960s.

It's now been discontinued in favour of a new version of the Galaxie.

JN

Thanks, Jim. You sound quite certain, but:

1: The pickups look very similar to those on 1963 Hofner Super Solid.

2: Having handled the guitar and examined it closely, there is no way, even allowing for accelerated wear and tear, that the guitar is only five years old.

Cheers

Noel

Hi, Noel,

I am, as you say, quite certain. Those pickups are copies of Gibson humbuckers and are not the same shape as Hofner "Diamonds" (which would be the units used on a 1963 Hofner). Hofner Diamonds were narrower than Gibson hb pickups.

Until the mid 1970s, no Hofner guitar had obvious copy components - that was a phenomenon which didn't come about until the later 1960s - and even then, it was an Asian innovation (apart from the odd hand-built replica here and there).

The Hofner company designed their own components and either made them in-house or had them produced on contract. Additionally, original 1960s German-made Hofner solids with clear and obvious Fender-style body shaping always had single-sided headstocks - until the recent batches of Chinese-made guitars, that is. I did give thought to buying a recent Colorama (they had them cheap at Peter Cook's), but passed when I saw the non-authentic three-per-side headstock, which I don't think suits that guitar.

Happily, Steve Russell's superb Hofner / Selmer / Watkins / Futurama / Bird website almost clears up the mystery:

http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/vintagehofner/oddballs/odb12.html

A prototype from 2003 or so (though I think your pictured example is a short-batch production model from later).

HTH,

JN

PS: There was this, in the late 1970s:

http://www.vintageguitar.com/online-readers-gallery/electric-guitars/hofner-164-iv-electric/

But you will appreciate the obvious differences immediately. The 1970s were as unhappy a time for Hofner as they were for Fender (and for fans of both makers).

Thanks, Jim. There are certainly some close similarities. The real problem I have is with the date and I can't see that the guitar I closely examined was built so recently.

It has now been positively identified as a 2004 HOFNER MODEL HE-179 SOLID GUITAR PROTOTYPE , considered by Hofner for production in their Chinese factory from 2004. In the end, it was the New Colorama that went into full production. (Although a few HE-179's have got out onto the market).

It really did seem a helluva lot older than that!

Cheers

Noel

The headstock really doesn't suit that style of guitar, does it?

JN