Restoration project coming up...

Riaan

...of two Hofner's I grabbed off BidorBuy this morning: an electric guitar and an electric bass. Both appear to be vintage, with "made in Germany" on them. The bass looks like a 185 Artist model, I've no idea what the guitar is. Both in bad cosmetic condition, but I believe structurally sound with no damage to the wood.

Actually, I've been searching for a bass for some time now, and saw this bass and bid on it. So the guy phones me and offers the guitar also...well what can I say, I grabbed that also... :-[

Got them for R1350 each...what do you think, good buy or not? The seller pays for the courier cost of around R500 8)

So now I'm in for two restoration projects. I've been thinking of restoring the bass as close as possible to the original, electronics and all, as it appears to be in the better condition cosmetically. Will see about the guitar, it has no electronics and for some reason has two extra holes in the headstock, with bass tuners installed. No idea why anyone would want to do that. So I might fill those and sand and respray the whole thing.

Please, advice and comments, tips etc. welcome!

AlanRatcliffe

I've seen quite a few of those vinyl covered ones around (can't remember the model though). Collector's pieces, but very much on the low end of the scale as they were budget guitars to start with. Early - mid '60s. Narrow, thin necks and microphonic pickups.

That tuner job looks every bit like one of the "boer maak 'n plan" jobs I've seen so many of. You're lucky there isn't a kg or two of Pratley Puttey or Liquid Steel glue caked somewhere nasty too. Probably they had some bass heads handy and instead of finding the right thing, they just drilled new holes for the bass heads.

Given the condition, I'd say you overpaid... I hope the seller still has the pickguard and pickups for the guitar...

AlanRatcliffe

Ah! Hofner Colorama I:
The two pickup '62/'63 version of this:
http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/hofner/myaxe/62col.html

Also see:
http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/factfiles/colorama/cols.html

slyd

All I can say is ; . . . . . WTF did that (whoever) guy try to accomplish with his headstock/tuner mod . . ?????

The restoration will be fun, tho'. Enjoy!

Gearhead

You could claim that you got you bum shot whilst on stage and fill those tuner holes that way :-\

Riaan

Thanks guys, will post some pics as the projects progress. Thanks Alan for those links, looks like there are some Hofner enthusiasts out there - might come in handy when looking for parts.

Since it's not a high value guitar, I may just do something interesting with the Colorama instead of trying to restore it back to the original. Watch this space...

kapepper

you should not have paid 1350 rand for the guitar
the bass is fine and a good deal