gorch

He was brilliant.

The potential neck problematic still touches me. So, I went to the auction page and read the description again. The most important part is this I think. "Intonation and fretwork are excellent. Electronics and electronic hardware all function as they should. The neck is straight and not twisted, as I have tried to show in the pictures. The neck is very thin and sensitive to string gauge. A set of 9s causes the slight and expected bend up." First of all, intonation and fretwork are excellent. For me this is the most important sentence of all, because it says that tone wise the guitar plays and sounds correctly. As far as I know, Hamer did not use stressed necks at the time. This implies that the neck must be more sensitive to string gauge changes than a stressed neck would ever be. Simply, because higher string gauges apply more tension to the neck than lower ones. "A set of 9s causes the slight and expected bend up." That's where the truss rod comes into play. "The neck is straight" tells me that there are no issues with the neck as a whole. Thin or not thin or whatever thin means, this "thin" neck survived 32 odd years without having any technical issue. Looking at the photo shows that the buyer would have to tighten the truss rod a bit to lower the action and receive a wonderfully playable vintage instrument. From my point of view there are no technical issues at all with this guitar. There was nothing to fear about. It just needs a little setup after all these years. The only point left to me is a matter of taste whether I like the particular 59 burst of this one or not. After all, compared to the November auctions. This one was a nice-price.

I had in mind there were two 4-digits trading >5k in November . I could not find the total of those in the threads, but one was #192. This one wasn't that bad for my opinion.

Anyways, it's gone for the little 4.1k. One thing's for sure. Recession is far from being over. Prices still decline.

What tells you it's got a refret?

Is that it? Looking back, it seemed to be a forecast that Jol did not attend NAMM.

I can confirm. The Hamer XT lines are not as bad as the are said they would be. Within there price range they deliver great quality for money. Actually, the same what Hamer USA guitars do within their price range. Nevertheless, any Hamer to me is an Import! The notion import is not exact, however. Even the USA made Hamers are equipped with imported Schaller tuners. The electronics cavities are painted with this Belgian soup that is an imported product as well according to Jol. The base woods are grown in Honduras. Etc.

I am not a mainstream, but analytical guy. So, I don't buy Strats, LPs, SGs and Teles just because everybody plays them. Hamer's got a nice shape, superb quality, history, and a customer base that keeps a used market running plus a great and competent HFC community. My model selection delivers a wide array of sounds covering nearly any style. So, I don't miss anything. Why should I buy from another manufacturer when it can have one source of information to look at? Eventually, I sold my other guitars, because I needed them not anymore.

I don't think Hamer charges more for their guitars than any other true custom shop charges. The gibson custom shop i.e. I would not say is a true custom shop in the way Hamer and comparable workshops are that put enormous effort into the details.

Simply because they are popular!

It's all kaffee klatsch here. It doesn't matter whether Guild or Ovation or whatever guitars are built under the same roof where Hamer USA guitars are built. As long as it keeps the luthiers busy, it's fine to me. They cut the bodies on a CNC machine. So, its all a matter of programming what type of guitar comes out of that machine. Actually, it's the same thing they do in the factories in Asia. There, they might even cut the necks CNC based. I'd would say in Asia there exist larger factories that make guitars for a ton of labels, all under the same roof. As long as there are Hamer guitars built in Asia there will be the custom shop existing with the marketing icon Jol put to front. Still, there is nothing to worry about. Guys, the show goes on.

Good old German traditional luthier Hoyer is comparable to Hamer. Prices on their excellently crafted 70s production lines are rock solid. Rare to get Gibson copies made with a level of detail and quality as we know it from Hamer today. They are said to be better than the originals.

Actually, I don't see anything to worry about.

Eventually, he became famous... Highly recommended btw!

There is nothing that compares to the warms of a tube driven tone. I love my recent acquisition a VOX AC-15 H1TV. The 59er circuit into the Celestion blue bulldog is an unbeatable combination. It punches like a boxer in the ring. Add a Brian May style treble booster on a single coil guitar and it growls. I am using the BSM BM-Q. Although, there are excellent SS amps around, SS just don't deliver this world of tone. Still, I love the good old Rockman equipment. They deliver a warm sound either, but are far away from the attack tubes deliver. Recently, I send the Rockman tone from my XP100 directly into the blue bulldog but wasn't happy with the result. I suppose we distinguish SS from digitals. The digital world is even different and to my ears sounds clinically sterile .

It's gone I think.

Don't stop your dispute. It starts to hurt. That's what's it supposed to do. He's got the ball.

You are doing exactly right. I still own and care for my good old DUAL CS 626 record player I bought 1980. I refurbished my old Ohm Acoustics L speakers this year, because I immediately fell in love with their sound when I first heard them and thought I would not get anything better for the same money invested on new speakers. It's been the right decision doing so as they again deliver the sound I remembered from the early days. Unfortunately, my good old receiver died a couple of years ago, but I invested in a new one for the long run again. Although I bought my Hamers used for various reasons, I bought them for the long run. They are really good sounding guitars and of tremendous quality. Since they were stock, I made little changes to one or the other to have the sound delivered I like to hear. Maybe, when the kids are out someday in the future I will turn up with a custom order. Sharpen your pencils for the long run.

Your bass is gonna be seriously bad ass. Congrats. Thank you Sir. ... In the near future it will look like this... ...damn nice bass but no carpets on the floor. You will need to make an arrival photo like veatch did last time.

No Benz in there. It's all British stuff, Jaguar and Range Rover. Leads to the suggestion that the wholly shit is British. But it is isn't. They are from New Mexico.

Excellent headstocks there are. Excellent guitars they are. Nothing to argue about Hamer guitars really except they are cheap on the used market.

It's been a long way to read through this thread. Right at the current end, I am not sure what to think about. I somewhat lost direction. What are we actually talking about? Hamer USA is a custom shop delivering ~10 people's monthly salary? Assumed it really does. The Fender Custom Shop as stated on the Wikipedia page has 5 times as much employees to basically do the same thing. Produce copies of 50 year old guitar designs. Whether you call it Modern Vintage (Hamer) or Replicated Vintage (Fender), it's the same song blown through different horns. As the creator of core guitar designs, obviously, Fender has a marketing advantage they had used over time. On the other hand, I am not seeing Hamer through patriotic American glasses. Business like, to me Hamer consist of more than a little custom shop. As long as zenmindbeginner drives his Mazda there is a vindication for the so called Import line. Did you notice that Hamer runs three workshops on the Import line that are located in Korea, Indonesia, and China? I would not expect Hamer selling badly at all considering this extent of the company. In addition, Hamer is part of the Kaman Music Group that's called "being the largest independent distributor of musical instruments and accessories in the United States" according to Wikipedia. Within the group Hamer is described as "high-end electric and semi-acoustic guitars and basses". And finally, there is the recession which paints its own color on to the brand and the market as a whole. There are Hamer guitars that still sell for around $2k. Others sell for less. Be happy and catch one handmade for cheap if you can. They will conserve their value in the long run for my opinion especially the post millennium produced ones.

Ian Gillan for sure for me. He lead me to follow his solo career for decades excluding most of Deep Purple. David Coverdale is another one. Freddy Mercury had a true voice. Although most people think he stood for Queen, I admire Brian May and Roger Taylor evenly.

The other day I read an article about all that Activision game stuff, especially GuitarHero was interesting to read about. They, Activision, make the contracts directly with the bands. Saying, that the whole music industry is locked out of the game. Not a bad return in an already billion dollar market. Next step for them could be producing any popular signature guitar for the millions of home-players. Then Gender and Fibson would be happy to find their logo on the headstock to compensate for lost guitar sales and a diving guitar market.

I can only think of a Microsoft blue screen or... ...there have been an update installed reboot starts in a minute. Security alert: you catched the porn worm