Hohner Zambesi circa 1961 - a re-branded British-made Fenton Weill

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Fenton Weill guitars were formed by Henry Weill, a former partner with Jim Burns in Burns Weill guitars. The above pictured Hohner Zambesi model was produced by Fenton Weill for Germany's Hohner company. Hohner, who were most famously producers of accordions and harmonicas, never produced their own guitars but simply re-branded instruments from other manufacturers.

This guitar was described in the catalogue thusly:

The Zambesi 333

Another fine example in this range. With a beautifully veneered body in bird's-eye maple, improved single-sided machine heads, selector, tone and volume controls to operate the highly sensitive pick-ups. Celluloid finger-plate.

Soft Cover £1.18.0 extra

I believe the "celluloid finger-plate" is the raised plate with the Zambesi name on it. Notice also the Vox-like headstock, implying that various of these early British guitar makers must have shared parts or had a common manufacturer of parts between them.

Currently listed on eBay with a starting price of £40, but beware the condition is not good; I think this will be more of a museum piece than a player.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Hohner Guitaret: when guitar was almost dead (1963)

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In 1963, Ernst Zacharias, the musical and engineering genius behind Hohner's many electro-acoustic creations in the 1960s  - including the Clavinet made famous by Stevie Wonder on Superstition - anticipated electric guitar's quick obsolescence and proposed the Guitaret, an amplified lamellophone - aka a thumb piano - to replace it. 

For some reasons, it went out of production two years later, but some of these intriguing instruments survived and are still used by some musicians - the most notorious being Warren Ellis whose sense of coolness when it comes  to music instruments is highly appreciated at Guitarz. 

You will find here a video demo of the Guitaret that shows how surprisingly playable it is - but something tells me that Jimi Hendrix may not have found it so exciting as a guitar... 

Bertram

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Pink Shocking Hohner ST Lead

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Can we show a guitar just because of its colour? Well I guess we can - to be honest I wouldn't have looked at this Hohner ST Lead if not for its pink shocking so 1980s (the guitar is actually from the late 80s, early 90s). 

When you google this guitar, you mostly find questions of people who want to know more about it - and sometimes that it's a good professional instrument with a graphite neck, and how difficult it is to find replacement parts for it, since Hohner almost completely backed off from the guitar field...

This one is a lefty, and we never show enough!

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Hohner/Bartell Black Widow Fretless Bass

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OK, this is my eBay tip of the week and the auction finishes in two days - unless someone snaps it up on Buy It Now. I must admit I was sorely tempted to "hit that BIN" myself, especially at this price (starting bid: $459.00 / Buy It Now: $539.00).

For the uninitiated, this is an early 1970s Hohner-branded Bartell semi-solid fretless bass and was designed by Paul Barth, a former employee of Rickenbacker, Magnatone and National. It is a close relation of the Acoustic Corporation Black Widow (one of the guitars listed in my 500 Guitars book and which we also looked at here, some examples of which were built in Japan whilst others were built by Mosrite in the USA). We also looked at another Hohner-branded fretless bass - this time in natural finish - here.

For more information see the Acoustic Black Widow Fanpage.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Hohner Hollywood Bass VI / Baritone guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This post is for Biliby who emailed me waxing lyrical about a Jazzmaster/Strat hybrid guitar he'd found called the Hohner JT-60 - see pics of that one here.

The above-pictured guitar, however, is a custom shop version designed to function as a Bass VI. However, the guitar scale makes the strings a little floppy at the regular bass tuning and so it's more realistic to use it tuned to G. Not quite as low as a bass (c'mon, only three notes out), but lower than most baritone guitars. This was actually my own guitar, but I sold it several years ago when I was having my great guitar clear out. It was quite sad; I needed money to pay the bills, and ended up selling virtually my whole guitar collection. However, I soon built up another collection.

The guitar was manufactured in the Far East, but finished and set-up in Wales in the UK. I believe the guitar is a Trevor Wilkinson design (hey, he gets everywhere) and features Wilkinson pickups and Wilkinson tremolo. The tremolo on the bass was fantastic - twang-tastic, even! I used this guitar on a few recordings in both bass and baritone roles. The string spacing also allowed EBow usage which sounded great. It was a very nice guitar, but not one that got played a whole lot.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Hohner Revelation RTX in marblish finish

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I've stated here a few times that I don't like strats, and not shredding either, so of course superstrats are not particularly my cup of tea. However, this early 90s Hohner Revelation RTX caught my eye, first because of its bizarre finish I guess, but also because its shape reaches a strange mix of elegance and extreme pointiness that you usually find in Japanese early 70s guitars such as the Tokai Hummingbird...

Unfortunatly I couldn't find much information about the Revelation, Hohner is more known for its current ergonomic and headless guitars and basses (and great harmonicas, I have a few of them), but beside the shape I like the H|S blade pickups, the 4 + 2 headstock, and the Wilkinson trem bridge.

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Hohner EGS "Blackhawk"

guitarz.blogspot.com:
This is Hohner's take on the ergonomic guitar, the Hohner EGS "Blackhawk". Personally I would have described it as minimalist rather than ergonomic. Where is the right forearm support, a la Ovation Breadwinner or Klein guitar?

The treble-side horn is actually an "Ergo-Wing" made from anodized high-grade aluminium. The Ergo-Wing is "adjustable, and can be rotated into two different wing radius positions that comfortably fit on the guitarist's legs for different playing positions".

The guitar features Schaller M6 locking tuning machine heads and security locking pins, a trio of EMG pickups (two S-1 singlecoils and an EMG-85 humbucker) and also has a piezo pickup built-in to the Shadow tremolo system.

I think if I was buying a guitar that retailed in the USA for $3,659.99, I'd want much more tasteful pickups than EMGs. In fact, their very presence makes me wonder what's wrong with the body. Does it not have any resonance, tone or vibe of its own that a decent set of pickups would enhance?

Finally, the seller claims that this is the ONLY Hohner EGS to have been brought into the UK. That's a bold claim. How does he know?

G L Wilson

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Hohner "The Prinz" Tele

What was once a budget "copy" guitar has now become a desirable and much sought after instrument. Much like Paul McCartney's Hofner violin bass which was styled after a Gibson instrument, this Hohner "The Prinz" guitar - styled after the Fender Telecaster - has become desirable mainly through celebrity useage, being Prince's guitar of choice alongside several other more flamboyantly-styled instruments.

By all accounts these are excellent guitars, and although based on the Fender Telecaster, many of the accoutrements are Hohner's own: the sandwiched maple body, the binding, the walnut (?) central stripe, the tortoiseshell pickguard and similar plate surrounding the bridge...

The seller tells us that this is an "original issue with Telecaster headstock not to be confused with the later and lesser value TE series", although it can't be one of the very first as the "Prinz" appellation was given to this guitar after Prince had been using one for quite a while. In a way, it was a case of Hohner cashing in. As far as I am aware Prince never officially endorsed any Hohner guitar models.