Hofner GAS

[Pilgrim]

ETA for the basses:  Club in 4 weeks and President sometime thereafter.  Whoohoo!

Ah, the definition of a GOOD double-dipper!  

[drbassman]

Ah, the definition of a GOOD double-dipper!  

The hard part is the waiting!  Thnakfully I've got the GC bass to keep me occupied!   

[jumbodbassman]

Love my old club bass.  always felt better than the beatle bass with the larger body.  Lots of crackly mojo on mine....  he is a picture to get you more excited...

[jumbodbassman]

i will add however that the new construction on the Contemp basses is very noticable when playing and IMHO it sounds and plays much better than the vintage ones. Feels so much less frail than the old ones and the pickup has more umph....  I was restringing when i took the picture.

[drbassman]

Wow Jim, very nice basses!  I know the German basses are a bit pricey, but I love the craftsmanship and it's a good deal going from a Japanese Gretsch to a German Hofner.  I'll have a chance to evaluate the CT series when I get the President.  I was always pretty happy with my prior Club's tone.  Yes, they are light and feel fragile, but that's probably more perception that reality after holding and playing solid body basses that weigh 7 lbs. or more.

The Club I ordered is a special edition with Cavern spaced pups (both closer to the heel), the Diamond pups and a hand applied shellac finish.  Gonna look like an old violin!!!!  The Hofner rep said the bass is actually on the bench right now.  they have the body and neck all ready to go, they just have to rout, install the electronics and hardware.  Not sure about final finishing.  4 weeks and counting.

[godofthunder]

I love my old Beatle bass, transition model '65-'66. I would agree that the new German made ones are better than my vintage bass. But I love mine even with the poorly reset neck. My dad drove me out to the RIT ( Rochester Institute of Tech.) Apartments in '73 in his '73 black Thunderbird. It was a crappy winter evening and we really should have stayed home but I was so hot for this bass lol We walked in to this hippy apartment, flat black walls, black draps,black lights and dayglo......................and a fish tank. We walked in to the living room and there it was placed on the couch for me to view. I don't think I was ever more excited or happy in my life. My dad after asking many times "are you sure this is what you want?" Opened up his wallet and and handed over the then large sum of $125.00. I was one happy camper with that bass riding home in the back seat. Bill congrats on your new Hofner, sounds like a beauty!

[drbassman]

Thanks Scott.  Ain't it grand what our parents did for us back in the day when they really didn't have a lot of money in the first place!?!  My Dad did almost the exact same thing.  When I told him I was going to be the bass player in our little band, he took me down to the local music store and I pick out a new 63 CAR jazz bass (cuz the Beach Boys played Fenders) and an Ampeg B-15 amp.  It had to have cost him $500.  Was I ever in heaven too!  Sure wish I had the brains to have kept both of them, but marriage and bills got the better of me.  I should have ditched the wife and kept the equipment!  She didn't last all that long anyway and I'm sure the stuff is still around!!   

[godofthunder]

 Oh well at least we can buy replacements for stuff we foolishly sold! You should have see the look on my dads face when we went to the HOG for a case and they told him $100! In the end he paid for that as well.

[Dave W]

Adjusted for inflation, our folks paid more for those guitars and basses than you would today. More of a bite out of their income. My dad paid $99 in 1959 for my first guitar, a Melody Maker. That's $772 in today's dollars. Granted, the new ones aren't exactly the same as the old, but the street price on a new one is now $489.

I'm not sure what this means other than that we can be grateful for what our parents bought and grateful for the relatively lower prices today. Maybe it also means that certain persons with severe GAS can use it to justify buying more. 

[Stjofön Big]

In the summer of -63 I had my first job. Worked at a power plant that was being built way up north in the mountains. Learnt to drink hard liquor. I was fifteen.
Did the same the following summer, with the difference that I put my money in a better place. And that's a Hofner violin bass. Cost me quite exactly $100.00. Which was an almost identical sum to what I earned in a month.
In the summer of -65 I got my first steady job. For my first pay I bought a suit, white shirt, black shoes, and a tie. What was I thinking? Where was I heading? Well, I'm glad my path changed, and I feel I'm younger than that now.
Wish I'd kept that bass. And the Club bass I bought after the violin one. Plus, of course, the Epiphone Rivoli I bought thereafter. And....

[Lightyear]

Adjusted for inflation, our folks paid more for those guitars and basses than you would today. More of a bite out of their income. My dad paid $99 in 1959 for my first guitar, a Melody Maker. That's $772 in today's dollars. Granted, the new ones aren't exactly the same as the old, but the street price on a new one is now $489.

I'm not sure what this means other than that we can be grateful for what our parents bought and grateful for the relatively lower prices today. Maybe it also means that certain persons with severe GAS can use it to justify buying more. 

Agreed.  My folks bought my Ripper for me at quite a price - it was a Christmas present - acutally most of my Christmas that year if I remember correctly   Looking back on it I realize now that we, me and brothers, always had a really good Christmas and my folks never gave that much to each other.  Was pretty much the same the rest of the year as well. 

[Dave W]

Thinking of that first Melody Maker, I still have the hand drawn lesson sheets from my first guitar teacher. One of them has a note written at the bottom "remember the students of today are the stars of tomorrow." Guess I didn't apply myself enough!

[Highlander]

My start was a piano... a freebie from a friend of my mum; all we had to pay was delivery which was about £5 ($15?) back in the late sixties... had a couple of dead keys but that was the primary start for me... Started double bass at school about '68 and took an interest in drums too but didn't get my first electric (an EB2 copy with a single pup by the neck, floating bridge and a bolt-on neck) until I started work... I had no financial "free" help with any of my own musical purchases... dad had a strict policy of "if you want something, you have to work for it..." He did act as a guarantor for my RD when I bought that on hp over 9 months though but the PC and the Hiwatt purchases were almost all hard-work cash or short term loans...

Like Dave mentioned about about applying yourself, I gave it 18 months once I had a trade behind me but went back to the "real world" in '83...

The only part I have of the EB copy is the name-plate off the neck... Like Stjofön, I wish I had kept this bass, but I remember Scott talking about that first Hofner and regretting letting her go, and replacing years later... I have had a watch on e8ay for a few years and only seen one come up, but I would never dream of parting with what the beast went for, considering it was soo bad, in reality, that it would only have been a wall-hanger...

[nofi]

same here. i had to buy my own gear. first bass was a 60's pawn shop univox something or other.

[drbassman]

Well, I was probably a little spoiled to say the least, but both my parents grew up quite poor (dad - coal miner family; mom - orphanage for 6 years after grandma died) and I know this was their way of somehow trying to erase some of the memories.  I do admire you guys who had to do it all yourself.  My parents wouldn't let me work, except in the summers.  They insisted I only attend school during the rest of the year and get the best grades possible.  They were obsessed with education.

I paid them back by following their insistance on higher education, earning 3 college degrees, being totally independent and not moving back in with them to live in their basement!  Their dream was to go to college, which neither of them did, but they worked hard and made it without college or help from anyone.  Amazing people from an amazing generation.  Their influence on my life is indelible.

What a nice walk down memory lane guys, thanks!