A couple of years ago, I started a thread about Hohner guitars. Since I have been a long time owner of a Hohner G-940 acoustic, when I started that thread I was thinking of acoustics, and so I placed that thread in the 'Acoustic Heaven' section. But since the name of the thread was 'Any Hohner love out there in TDPRI land?' Periodically TDPRI members would post about their Hohner (and Steinberger) electrics. So every now and then I would think about starting a Hohner club thread, and placing it in the Guitar Owners Clubs section.
But I wasn't sure the interest was there, and so I never got around to it. Well today something else occurred to me.
At times I've caught myself thinking of my Hohner thread like a club thread. But since it's not, posting to it after long periods of dormancy could raise 'zombie' accusations.
So, I'm officially starting a 'Hohner Owners' (say that five times real fast ) club thread. Acoustic and electrics are both welcome. I'll post pics and descriptions of mine a little later on, when time permits. But I just wanted to get this started. If any other of you Hohner owners beat me to the punch, well, that's just fine with me. Okay, I'll post about my Hohners now.
Or begin to, at least. I have two and I'll probably comment on them in separate posts. As I said back 2009, many if not most references to Hohners I had read to that point were either apologetic or outright derogatory in nature. I started 'Any Hohner love out there in TDPRI land?' As a means of correcting that problem. I wanted people to know that there are some nice Hohners out there. And I don't just mean nice entry level guitars, although that's certainly true as well.
I mean nice, really nice, quality guitars on the higher end of the spectrum. My Hohner G-940 case in point. I've had her now for 28+ years, she's just great. She's a part of that 900 Arbor series that David (bridgepinSr.) just mentioned. All solid woods, aged woods.
These guitars were made in Japan from 1979 to 1985, IIRC. Bought mine in 1983 for $600, which is equivalent to $1,300 + today.
I'll put her up against anything Martin or Taylor has in that price range today. The (my) 940 has an 'aged close grain solid spruce' top, solid select mahogany back & sides, solid Honduran mahogany neck and an ebony fretboard. The bridge is rosewood, the body is bound with maple, top and back. The neck and headstock are also bound in maple. Position markers are inlaid maple, as is the name on the headstock. The nut and saddle are bone.
Hohner Professional Guitar Serial Numbers
The only plastic on this guitar is the pickguard. Here are some pics of what I’m talking about. The Hohner is on the right in the picture (in my left hand). The other acoustic is my Breedlove AD25/SM acoustic/electric, and my Logan Custom mahogany Tele is in the middle. An older pic, of me playing the Hohner for my grandson Corbin (he's 10 now). My Hohner in action. That neck still plays like butter, and she has balanced tones and great projection, no doubt due to all the solid woods and the dreadnaught size.
I don't take her out of the house much anymore, but she's the centerpiece of my meager collection of 7 guitars (4 acoustics, 3 Logan Custom Teles). I'll never part with her.
My son inherits her when I'm gone. Here's the story on my second Hohner. Back on September 1st, I pulled the trigger on a later (albeit discontinued) model Hohner, the DR550. All solid woods: solid cedar top, solid rosewood back & sides, 1 piece mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard, ebony bridge. Here's a stock photo from the Hohner website.
I wanted to the get the DR550CE, the cutaway version with the Fishman electronics, but I couldn't find one. The DR5500 is the (strictly) acoustic version.
Here's my review. This guitar is built of all solid woods. The top is a solid cedar top, the back & sides, solid rosewood. The neck is a 1 piece mahogany, and the fretboard is striped ebony, with a striped ebony bridge. The body and neck are bound in maple, and the top has some nice purfling. The fretboard abalone inlays are understated but attractive, as is the gold hardware. Speaking of which, the Grover 18:1 high ratio tuners are nice; they operate smoothly and efficiently.
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I de-tuned to double-drop D, then to an open G, then back up again to standard. Like I said, smooth and efficient.
The workmanship is very, very good. No sloppy glue residue inside or out, sanded well, etc. The matte finish is attractive. The frets are a little sharp, but not too bad. There is one flaw on the top of the guitar, a very small and shallow ding on the treble side of the soundhole. You have to look hard to find it.
It could very easily have been done in the music store, not the factory. Really no big deal.
All in all, this is a really beautiful instrument. And as for sound, this baby is a cannon. She's plenty loud, and projects very well, good for strumming. At the same time, she has a nice string to string articulation, does a nice job of handling both fingerstyle and flatpicking. Man, just pluck a harmonic, set her down and walk off and get yourself a cup of coffee! This baby rings for days!
The action was just a little high for my tastes (I'm spoiled to my G-940), but definitely playable. I've used this guitar for experimenting with slide playing (something I've never done that much of).
If I choose not to play it for slide, I'll probably get a tech to do a setup on this guitar to optimize playability. The street price for these guitars was around $600 when they were in production. As I understand it, they are now discontinued, and the music store from which I purchased this guitar bought up a lot of units of this and other discontinued models. Like I said before, I wanted the DR550CE model, w/ cutaway and Fishman electronics, but they sold out before I was ready. Definitely worth the money. More pics to follow.
Ok, for a sense of context I own four guitars and this is probably the worst of the four. There's the Hohner, a Pacifica 604 (essentially a fat strat), a PRS SE Soapbar and a Schecter Ultra. I don't own a tele (oopsy!) but am working towards getting one. Advantages-wise - the construction is neck-through which is what it is. The guitar is 100% maple but is pretty light because of the design.
The pickups have individual toggle switches wired in parallel (I think) so you can get some interesting variation. Downsides - strings cost more because they need to be double ball ended. The pickups are not really any better than ok - They sound better through the line 6 software I used than my amps but the amps I own aren't really as high gain as the modelling software can go. The big downside (on mine only, maybe) is that the saddles are held still by string tension and the g saddle migrates towards the nut while playing. Tried to glue it in with nail polish but it has only worked as a temporary fix.
I have some quite varied guitars in terms of pickups, fret size, neck size, radius, string gauge etc. But the Hohner feels harder to play than the others, even over the Schecter strung with 12s. That said, Would I sell it? Would I gig it?
I saw Bowie playing on the Brit Awards with Placebo in about 1998 with the Steinberger that this copies, and thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. Mine has a very, very faint blemish in the finishing (on the back too) so I got it in 2004 for about £230.
It was a deal I just couldn't turn down. Look on youtube for 'Hohner G3T' and you'll find that they have quite a unique honky tone unlike any other guitar I've heard. Cheers for the post Steincaster.
I just picked it up for a fiddle and the saddle screws are raised 1-2mm already. What's happened is that they (all of them to a small extent, but the g massively so) move towards the nut and the base of the screw carves into the metal.
On the g it's more pronounced for whatever reason so it moves more easily as there's less resistance from the base plate. I tried clear nail polish knowing it can be removed easily but I googled recently and saw epoxy suggested by someone with a similar issue. Obviously, being able to re-set the saddles at a later date is desirable should I want to change gauges/tuning. Got a pic off the interwebs so you can see what I mean by the baseplate bit.
Guitar Serial Numbers Epiphone
Hi folks, Bought a salmon pink Hohner Strat copy from a charity shop this morning. It has a maple neck, white scratchplate and 5 position switch. Its in good condition, and has 'Made In Japan' on the neck plate. It has a good feel, solid and a good weight.
It just says 'Hohner' on the headstock. I bought it mainly because of the 3 magic words, 'Made In Japan', and hope I've got a bargain, however I can't find anything much on the web about these, and would be hoping to re-string, set up and re-sell. Does anyone know anything about these? Thanks in advance. They had a range of copies out in the early/mid 80's for sure I saw quite a few Strats and Tele's retailed for about 150 quid back then, looked a bit better possibly than the beat up old Maya I had at the time, and were quite accurate copies with a proper Fender shaped headstock and everything.
Prince did indeed play a Hohner 'Prinz' Tele-like model, it was a rather higher priced premium model of theirs and had some finer woods in it than the standard, I remember playing one once. That's a real bargain.
Why don't I find things like that languishing in charity shops! Boot cd iso download. Pictures please!! I love this old stuff I used to see hanging round guitar shops and wonder what happened to it all, Hohner, Maya, Fresher, Columbus, Harmony, Kay, Satellite, Antoria etc etc. God bless Gerd! HohnerFan you are a star! Are you in fact Gerd, who has given me the info I needed from the website quoted above after I sent an email? For anyone interested here is the good news, and some pics.
This is the email response from Gerd, from the website above:- 'You are the proud owner of a Hohner HG-425S from 1977, maybe one or two years later. I found the guitar in a catalog scan from 1977, its only the sunburst version there but I think yours were build at 1977 too.
A really nice guitar with real good specifications, I have never seen a Hohner from before 1980! And the second, I never know that the older Hohner were build in Japan, the Hohner Professional Guitars were build by Cort in Korea.' I have asked Gerd for the spec.
In the meantime here are the pics (as long as I've loaded them correctly).
First of all, welcome to TDPRI. This can be a great resource for all things guitar. Unfortunately, you might not get much response to your post, since you've posted this to the general Telecaster Discussion forum. There are other (sub)forums here that would be a more suitable place for this discussion thread, such as the Other Guitars, other instruments forum, or even better the 'Hohner Owners' club thread in the 'Guitar Owners Clubs' forum. If the Moderators of TDPRI do not move your thread there, I would ask you as a favor to re-post your information and pics and questions there. I am an owner of Hohners, and in fact I started the 'Hohner Owners' club thread as a place for our discussion and as a repository of information online.
Here's a link to that club thread.
Memento hindi dubbed movie download. I played a Hohner Professional B Bass V (5 string) for years. It was a great bass (cost me about £350 new in the early 1990's (maybe 1992)) and I've got no plans to get rid of it anytime soon (although it's retired now because I bought a custom Shuker).
Just for reference the serial number on mine is C100628. It has both active and passive pick-up modes although some active feedback at a gig fried the pre-amp. However, all of that probable isn't that much help to you as it's probably not the bass you have. quote name='EntropicLqd' post='589111' date='Sep 3 2009, 09:00 PM'I played a Hohner Professional B Bass V (5 string) for years. It was a great bass (cost me about £350 new in the early 1990's (maybe 1992)) and I've got no plans to get rid of it anytime soon (although it's retired now because I bought a custom Shuker). Just for reference the serial number on mine is C100628. It has both active and passive pick-up modes although some active feedback at a gig fried the pre-amp.
However, all of that probable isn't that much help to you as it's probably not the bass you have /quote Having replaced my pre in my B Bass V with a John East U-Retro, I have the original sitting in a box, if you would like it? Edited September 4, 2009 by geoffbyrne.
quote name='Brave Sir Robin' post='589308' date='Sep 4 2009, 01:12 AM'Interesting. I've got some cash aside and decided to upgrade my old trusted B-Bass IV's electronics (the weak point, although they are decent as is). I'm going for wizards and a Noll TCM3 PM B2026 Anyone actually tried EMGs in there? That's also an option, albeit expensive!
The B-Bass is a great little thing./quote Mine had EMG Selects which went to Ou7shined (I think) & he put them in something decent & really liked them(!). I managed to pick up a pair of Joe Barden Twin Rails from another Basschat member, and those, along with the John East have made the B V into a class act. Edited September 4, 2009 by geoffbyrne. quote name='geoffbyrne' post='589430' date='Sep 4 2009, 09:54 AM'Mine had EMG Selects which went to Ou7shiined (I think) & he put them in something decent & really liked them(!). I managed to pick up a pair of Joe Barden Twin Rails from another Basschat member, and those, along with the John East have made the B V into a class act. G./quote Have you any idea what the pickups and preamp are in the Hohner bitsa fretless i bought off you? They're being replaced by passives and a piezo bridge so i'm probably gonna give the whole lot away EDIT: Also what model was the body originally taken from?
Hohner Guitar History
Ta Edited September 4, 2009 by lemmywinks. quote name='lemmywinks' post='589611' date='Sep 4 2009, 01:00 PM'Have you any idea what the pickups and preamp are in the Hohner bitsa fretless i bought off you? They're being replaced by passives and a piezo bridge so i'm probably gonna give the whole lot away EDIT: Also what model was the body originally taken from? Ta/quote They were the originals, I believe. I certainly have no knowledge of the pre being changed, or even what it is. It is completely different from the pre in my Hohner B Bass V.
The B has the guts of the pre in a small rectangular box held in a double battery box beside the 9V battery. If I remember correctly all the guts on the J are in the cavity.
The pickups are essentially license-built EMG Selects. The body is a Hohner Professional JJ Bass, 2 piece in stained maple. It's entirely possible that it too was built by Cort in Korea. Geoff Edited September 4, 2009 by geoffbyrne. quote name='geoffbyrne' post='589648' date='Sep 4 2009, 01:36 PM'They were the originals, I believe.
I certainly have no knowledge of the pre being changed, or even what it is. It is completely different from the pre in my Hohner B Bass V. The B has the guts of the pre in a small rectangular box held in a double battery box beside the 9V battery. If I remember correctly all the guts on the J are in the cavity. The pickups are essentially license-built EMG Selects.
The body is a Hohner Professional JJ Bass, 2 piece in stained maple. It's entirely possible that it too was built by Cort in Korea. Geoff/quote Cheers Geoff! Hi, I will revive this zombie. I've got an opportunity to buy Hohner JJ Professional bass, but I found internet to be not very helpful in search for some more details about the bass. She has obviously maple/maple neck and unknown body with flame maple top (maybe just a veneer), two jazz pickups labeled Hohner, gold hardware and no visible serial number (maybe on neck plate, but can't be sure).
Can anyone tell me what is this? Here are some pictures of actual bass: Edited March 31, 2011 by kurcatovium. Looks a lovely bass to me, aesthetically at least.
Depends what you want to know, it's likely mid-80s to mid-90s, probably Korean, it's active, I'd expect the controls are the same as the Jack & later versions of the B2A - 2x volume, and coaxial treble/bass. Can't be 100% sure from the pic but it looks like a single-piece neck rather than a glued-on board - nice! Does want a setup, though. The serial is probably on the neckplate - these are hefty cast metal with the Hohner Pro logo & stamped on serial number. A C prefix will almost certainly mean Cort in Korea, sorry but I don't know how to date these from serials.
Anyway, in my experience the Hohner Pro range is consistently very good, & if this bass is any sort of bargain I doubt you'd go far wrong. Edited March 31, 2011 by Bassassin.