NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

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sookwinder
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NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

Post by sookwinder » Sat Jul 14, 2018 12:03 am

New Guitar Day x2 - HOFNER CLUB 50s
Ok guys … as usual with my postings for a new guitar(s) you may need to grab a cuppa tea or a beer and sit back for good read about Hofner Club 50s.

My “guitar journey” has progressed from being a keyboard/organ player to buying a Strat in my late 30s, to Jaguars/Jazzmaster, teles, Jazz bass, Rickenbacker 360 (one trick pony), then a Les Paul, ES 137, Bass VI, then on turning 50 five years back I discovered 1960s Gibson/Epiphone thinlines out of Kalamazoo (335, Riviera, Sorrento, Casino), Hofner Club bass and more recently I discovered Gibson/Epiphone acoustics from the 1950s and 60s. Quite a journey, a journey that needs a spare room to store everything.

While there are many types of guitars that I haven’t got into I was quite happy with the tonal palette that I was using and did not really expect to get excited about any new guitar that I may come across.

Then this happened … A month or so back I was surfing the web and fell over this youtube video of a Swiss luthier presenting a restored 1960 Hofner Club 60.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKMj8vhoJb8
The first 20 seconds and the last half minute of the vid are of the guy actually playing the gtr, the middle section is him explaining (in French) all about the Hofner Club 60

I was totally blown away by the sound of the Club 60. I have always known that many of my British music heroes from the 60s used Hofner Club 40s and 50s before they could afford a fender or a Gibson etc. Also back in the late 50s there was the embargo on luxury goods being imported into the UK, with guitars listed as a luxury goods, so one could not even locate a Fender or Gibson in the UK back then l let alone afford to buy it. Other than the "Decca Audition" recordings that the Beatles did which were shall we say average at best, or the early EASYBEATS tracks, I can't recall ever knowingly hearing a Hofner Club guitar.

I did some more youtube searches and located these two vids by another guy, showing the SC PUP and the HB PUP version of the Hofner Club 50.
FYI the Club 60 was just a more ornate version of the Club 50, both having two pups with the CLUB 40 had a single pup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL1PS-C4r_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kaud8dbY4pU

I already had experience with Hofner instruments, having two modern German made reissue Club Basses. They are so comfortable to to play, light as a feather (hollow body), neck is easy and the ergonomics of the design are almost perfect. It also seems like the German made instruments are made in very low numbers effectively like a Custom Shop operation, so the quality is extremely high.

After viewing those youtube vids ... I had huge GAS for a Hofner Club 50.
But I could not work out whether I wanted a version with HB or the bar style pups.

There was a 1958 CLUB 50 available here in Oz, but as I soon discovered during my steep learning curve, the 1950s Club 50/60s did not have truss rods (truss rods seems to have been added to the design in the early 60s). It also appears that like the vintage Hofner Club Basses I looked into some years back, a neck reset almost 100% of the time and in a lot of cases also need the neck to be steamed.

As 99% of my guitar purchases have to be made sight unseen (ie I do not get a chance to play or look over the instrument) I had no confidence in purchasing a vintage Hofner and it being a “no issue” instrument as I might have if purchasing a vintage Fender or Gibson. This isn’t a put down of Hofner but rather the facts for someone who lives in Australia and has to buy vintage instruments form the USA or Europe. So for these reasons I decided to look for a modern manufactured Club 50 rather than a vintage Club 50 (as I did with the Club Bass).

I did some internet searches and unlike the Club bass there did not seem to be many readily available modern reissues of the Club 50 guitar. Obviously there are the Chinese made Hofner Club 50s, but I wanted a German made instrument, given the high quality and playability I have experienced with the German made Club Basses I have.

There are a number of guitar shops in the USA & Europe that sell Hofner product who say they can do a special order for a Club 50 for about $3k-4k, but I was holding back on contacting them. For example:
https://beatlebassdealer.com/hofner-clu ... guitar.htm

Even thought about contacting Hofner themselves and asking about the availability of the Club 50 … it is not currently shown on the Hofner website.

It appears that Hofner do very small runs of Club 50s from their guitar shop at the German factory every year or two. There was 120 Club 40s manufactured back in 2008 (I think for the 120 anniversary of Hofner) based on Lennon's original 1959 Club 40.

Following subsequent investigations and a conversation with a member of the “The Jazz Guitar Forum” (awesome website/forum by the way) while there is a Hofner US Custom Shop who fill the need for whatever colours the customers request through their Hofner retailers, Hofner Germany does not do this.

In about 2010 Hofner Germany started their “Gold Label” program doing small batches of custom wood/custom finish instruments in Germany, usually one set of six-to-a-dozen per year. Further the specifications of these batches of guitars from the German Hofner guitar shop (types of pickups, finishes, woods used) appears to change with each batch.

To my way of looking at the Hofner Germany guitar shop is that it is effectively a “Custom Shop”, just like Fender has.

I was a little depressed in as much as with so few manufactured German instruments the likelihood of locating some available on the usual websites was pretty low. But I pressed on with more interwebz searching, changing parameters, asking sellers etc and suddenly I checked Reverb and two German manufactured Club 50s showed up.
One was a sunburst model with HBs and the other was a Blonde with black bar PUPs.

I could not decide which to buy .. so I went with both!

HOFNER CLUB 50 / Blonde / Bar PUPs
Some of these photos are from the seller, some I have taken.
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This blonde Club 50 with black bar PUPs is from 2008 (originally sold in 2010) and is effectively in mint condition. (actually I cannot find any blemish or fret wear on it at all). The seller had never shipped outside of the USA , but after some explanation of what to do, the seller shipped via USPS.

HOFNER CLUB 50 / Sunburst / HB PUPs
Some of these photos are from the seller, some I have taken.
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This Sunburst Club 50 with HBs is a June 2015 build and I discovered that over the past two and a half years it has been sold five times. The guitar is effectively mint with no fret wear and a couple of very light scratches in the clearcoat at places one only find when you are picking up the guitar and you feel them…. they basically cannot be seen. Also interesting in a trainspotting perspective, this Club 50 never came with or had a guard fitted. I have seen similar (sold) instruments built in the same 2015 batch that also did not have a guard fitted. One could ask why? But then maybe it is just what the builders at Hofner

When I first got it out of the, I started to set the intonation (via moving the bridge) and at some point I needed to plug the guitar into a plug in tuner to finely check the intonation. Then I realised there was no signal from the neck pup.

My first thoughts were that if I needed to order a PUP from Hofner Germany, that is no issue as the cost of the guitar was about $500 cheaper than I had seen the selling price of other similar instruments in “completed sales” listings. Then I opened up the control panel and remember how weird the Hofner control circuit is compared to every other guitar manufacturer’s electric set up. Nothing looked damaged or looked like dodgy solder joints and then I noticed an un-shielded wire at the inside bottom area of the control panel area. This wire is the earth lead to ensure the tail piece/strings are not floating electrically. I had a thought that maybe the earth wire had been shorting out the neck PUP. I moved the earth wire away and immediately the neck PUP was singing strongly!

I wonder whether the guitar has always had the earth wire shorting out the neck pup and owners have opened up the control panel (one of the small securing screws is non original) but no one has had the brains to assess what the issue is and the owners just keep selling it on. So with just a little bit of thinking and a cuppa tea I repaired the guitar which was a real bargain.

The cases are awesome with their own humidifier and barometer!
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I have spent the past 4 days playing the both of the Club 50s and I am not disappointed in any way. In fact these guitars are truly unknown gems. The necks have a similar1 5/8” nut with a rounded but not too chunky profile. They are light as a feather, it is a breeze to play them and actually it is really fun to play them both and isn’t that what it is all about.

While both versions of the Club 50 have similar traits in as much as they are the same basic design, having a woody sound, a jazzy sound in some settings and rock sound in others. Acoustically one can sit and play and you get a fair sense of the sound. The scale length is about 24.5", so bending is real easy, just like playing a LP, without the broken back.

There is though a big difference in sound with the HBs when compared to the Black bar PUPs.

The HB sound is magnificent. The PUPs are really hot at about 8.3k, but are not muddy or dirty at all. (The guitar was plugged directly into an amp with no pedals). They can produce a nice warm overdrive with still a freshness that I have never heard in pickups that are this hot. In fact my guitarist was playing it and just by adjusting one of the volume pots on the guitar, he went from jazzy cool tones to dirty but not muddy OD sounds easily. The Neck HB is quite a bit different to the bridge HB is sound, far more bassy. Much more of a difference than say in a LP or 335 set of HBs. This is a good thing because there is a vast range of sounds that can be achieved with selecting each PUP singularly or in combination.
Plus the weird Hofner control set up can achieve additional variations in sound between turning a PUP down via the volume knob compared to removing that PUP from the circuit using the slider switch.

The Black Bar PUP Club 50s have a really single coil sound. It should be noted that the original black bar PUPs from the 50s and 60s were single coil PUPs, but I believe that the Black bar PUP on this instrument (that Hofner use on other models as well) are a no noise SC PUP with a double stack design that removes hum/noise. But make no mistake they sound like vintage SC PUPs … they sound like some of the best SC PUPs I have ever heard. Even when overdriving a valve amp there is a crispness and SC sound to them. I do not believe they are as hot as the HBs, but there is plenty of signal to work with. Unlike the HB version, the black bar PUPs are similar is sound, in the same way that a neck and bridge PUP on a strat is similar… not as much variation as the HB fitted Club 50.

The modern versions of the HB and Black Bar PUPs that Hofner fit to their instruments are extremely similar to what I have heard of the original designs used back in the 50s and 60s. Whether this was intentional or just a coincidence of the design used I do not know. But I am very happy with the sounds of both guitars.

If I was asked which is the better instrument… the HB or the black bar model .. I could not pick one from the other. They are at the same time very similar but also very very different. I am glad the guitar sales gods allowed me the opportunity of purchasing both versions.

Finally if you get a chance to play a modern German made Club 50 or even a vintage Club 40/50/60 grab it with both hands. You will not be disappointed. [James, next time you are passing my way we can have some fun!]

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One last thing before I finish ... the label inside each of the Club 50s is signed by the Hofner luthier Thomas Stühlein.
I hope one day to visit the Hofner factory (if I get some more business trips to Germany) and say thank you to Thomas ... he is a true artisan.
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relaxing alternative to doing actual work ...

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jimboyogi
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Re: NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

Post by jimboyogi » Sat Jul 14, 2018 1:09 am

Oh yeah David, I'll head over soon to give these a play!

And....

Happy 10,000 posts day to you :D

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Re: NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

Post by kapepper » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:53 am

I went through some hofners in the past and always like the visual looks of them.
in this case, the same. Very nice and simple.....
hope you enjoy them!

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Re: NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

Post by Despot » Wed Jul 18, 2018 7:41 am

Very very nice Sookwinder!

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Re: NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

Post by shadowplay » Wed Jul 18, 2018 8:09 am

My first guitar was a gold and red vinyl covered plastic fantastic Hofner Galaxy I got for £15 and I really like their archtops and slightly regret not buying one when they were cheap

I remember seeing Club's quite regularly for buttons but I've never played one but yours look really great and now I'm regretting not giving one a go, I've some experience with both styles of pickups and I've been particularly taken with the single coils in an archtop my friend owns (not sure the model it's 50's and it has a lot of MOP flanking the headstock).

D
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Re: NGD x2: Hofner Club 50 - a delight I never saw coming

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Wed Jul 18, 2018 9:05 am

Congratulations on your twin beauties and thanks for a very informative post. As David says, the west of Scotland used to be awash with old Hofners for very little outlay, but for some reason I've never had one with pickups pass through my hands.

Prices seem a bit silly nowadays - the curse of anyone who can remember the pre-internet days when old guitars sold for modest prices - but if I ever get the chance to have a go on one I'll definitely take it.

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