The Hofner Guitar: A History

If you were young during the 1960's as I was, you almost certainly got yourself an electric guitar and played in a band, or you tried it - if not, you knew somebody who had!In those days, the incredible Fender, Gibson and Rickenbacker guitars sported by most of the bands on TV (back in those days, we called them beat groups!) were far too expensive for most kids to buy, so a Hofner Verithin at one third of the cost of a Gibson 335, or a Hofner Galaxie at less than a third of the price of a sunburst Fender Stratocaster, were much more readily available substitutes.This volume is an updated and augmented version of the original Hofner Guitar history, whose front cover featured the famous Committee model.Binding and presentation are attractive, with clear laminate photo covers, and quality glossy pages. The book contains beautiful colour photographs of a selection of Hofners, including Presidents, Committes, a Verithin and a Congress, from the late 1950s through to around 1970, broadly the period when the London based Selmer organisation was most busy importing Hofners from Germany. It also features interviews with famous guitarists from the 1960s through to the 1990s, such as Hank Marvin (the Shadows), Roy Wood (The Move, Wizzard), Justin Hayward (the Moody Blues), Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), and others with, of course, their reminiscences on these instruments. Also featured are reproductions of adverts for contemporary Hofner guitars and accessories, at prices which now seem absurdly low, but were anything but inexpensive, to an impecunious grammar school boy with no resources other than 10/- per week pocket money, and generous parents!If you still remember playing Hofner guitars through Selmer amplifiers, and are feeling nostalgic, or if you are too young to remember pounds shillings and pence, but wished that you had lived through the Merseybeat/flower power era, then get the book!

Although I have a high regard for the authors, Giltrap and Marten, this book is very disappointing - In terms of its content, I can see no justification for it being referred to as an 'Expanded Edition'- it only runs to about 90 pages!The format of the book is most unattractive with its miniscule photographs, irritating font changes, and extracts from bygone musical instrument catalogues most of which have been so reduced in size that makes them virtually worthless. There are however some reasonable sized photos of instruments in the author's collection but the quality of these photograph's leaves a lot to be desired!There are only four pages relating to the history of the Hofner guitar company so the title of the book is also a bit of a misnomer. The section on dating Hofner guitars is pretty sparse with no picture of the Fuma pickup and no illustrations showing headstock variations of each model over the years.Finally, the reviews of Hofner guitars by various guitar players, with the possible exception of those of Bert Weedon and Martin Taylor were not of great value to the book. Some players had no particular fondness for Hofners and their contributions really were quite irrelevant. Tommy Steele is mentioned by several reviewers as being an influential and very well known Hofner player of the latter 1950's who did much to popularise Hofners. What a shame his recollections of playing Hofners in those early years could not have been included here rather than say the uninspiring contributions of Alvin Lee and Midge Ure who seemed to know little about Hofners and owned them only in more recent times.

As a lover of guitars generally, and Hofner guitars in particular, I finally took the plunge and bought this to add to my collection of guitar books. I had looked at it for a long time and decided that it was not going to tell me anything I didn't already know about Hofner guitars or could find out from a trawl of the internet. Now that I've bought it, my initial thoughts were correct. However, as a general read for anyone just a bit interested in guitars it is well worth the £7 or so it cost. A bit of a lightweight in content, but it looks OK on the bookshelf.

Im at the moment working to restore a Hofner club 60 this guitar is in the book with a clear photo to follow plus interesting storys from well known guitarist that play or use to play Hofner in the 60s

strange book breif history ,a section of famous players who had a hofner before they made it ,all saying it was ok but did nt sound great and they moved on to american guitars .old sales adds. some pics a bit of a shallow book incomplete realy pound shop sort of book

Good service, This book gives you a fair bit of Hofner guitar history.

I had been waiting for this book to be published for ages, and was not disappointed. It is a must-have for any collector of books on guitars. It would have liked it to have been longer and a bit more detailed. However, it covers all the Hofner guitars sold in Britain from the late 50's to the early 70's.