Why Hamer Originally?

[zenmindbeginner]

As far as I know, I am the ONLY HFC member originally from and who grew up in Arlington Heights. Hamer is MY hometown guitar brand.

In my opinion, I am one of the few true Hamer fans. I've never purchased a guitar that wasn't a Hamer.

Sure, I built a couple of partscasters from Fender parts... but those were builds and they don't count.

I am 100% true blue Hamer. The streets of Arlington Heights were my homeland.

I could care less if Palatine incorporated that slice of Arlington Heights, Palatine wasn't shit... it had a decent movie theater but was a different school district from mine... I had very few run ins with Palatine.

School District 214 was always a bit more gritty that district 211. District 211 had Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates, Palatine and all of that upper middle class/upper crust vibe. District 214 was Elk Grove, Buffalo Grove, Mt. Prospect, Arlington Heights and Rolling Meadows... Arlington Heights and Elk Grove had some sort of ritzy sections but were largely working class.

I would be lying if I said it was a great place to grow up because it wasn't. Since the area I grew up was largely working class, "college culture" was absent. No college music and no college culture... the only culture was "street culture" and we didn't even get a great slice of that either since we were barely urban. I grew up knowing NOTHING and would have stayed that way if I never left.

I bought my first Hamer with my OWN money when I was 13. Yes, I was a pizza man at Rosatis in the 7th grade... I was the ONLY middle school kid who had an actual job. I had a good work ethic by the time I was 16 and had had plenty of jobs by then.

I'm sure I've told this story over and over... it's a good one and bears repeating though.

[Teh]

Hey Zen - Where in Arl Hts did you live? My wife grew up off Arl Hts Rd & Central, and I'm from Elk Grove (Moved there my sophomore year in HS).

[BadgerDave]

Hey badger what was the store on the downtown quad ?

Within a 5 block area on or near State Street:

Ward Brodt

Patti Music - the authorized Marshall dealer

Good n' Loud

Ray Kettner Music - "the Cats what plays goes to Rays"

A bit farther from campus:

Henri Music

The Buy 'n Sell Shop

[RobB]

YeeUH, represent! Real!

Nice post, Zen. Way to fly the flag!

[zenmindbeginner]

Hey Zen - Where in Arl Hts did you live? My wife grew up off Arl Hts Rd & Central, and I'm from Elk Grove (Moved there my sophomore year in HS).

Arlington Heights rd and Central was a cute little area. I had band practice with my metal band off of Highland and Kirchoff so it was just a hop skip and jump from where she grew up.

I actually am from the section 8 housing in the area and I'm not too keen on mentioning the exact street that I grew up on, just because it's sort of embarrassing. It wasn't actually section 8 when I grew up there but it is now... back in 1982, it was just cheap apartments as a sort of bottom of the barrel place to survive. I didn't give a shit because there were lots of kids and nobody judged one another for being poor... like I said, it's a working class neighborhood and even the rich folks are just thousandaires.

Elk Grove is awesome. It's actually a little less densely populated than Arlington Heights but not sleepy like Rolling Meadows. Elk Grove also doesn't have the bleak staring at fuel depots and the underside of planes like Des Plaines had... Elk Grove actually had some cool outdoorsy areas... probably because it was smack next to the Forest Preserves. Those Forest Preserves were dumping grounds for bodies and impromptu execution chambers for the mafia FWIW.

I hung out in the Briarwood Lake area which is where I did most of the stuff from my youth. Mount Prospect, Elk Grove, Des Plaines and Arlington Heights all come together in a little shitty sliver of an area off of 90. I hung out Elk Grove and Mt. Prospect an awful lot... I lived in Mt. Prospect before Arlington Heights, so all of my childhood memories are from that town.

[Teh]

No shame, no worries. We all grew up in working class families in that area. Very little money but lots of fun. Summer jobs in the industrial park. I worked at the Elk Grove Cinema before they shut it down and put a Burger King in the parking lot. Had friends who lived in the Oasis trailer park by O'Hare that went to EGHS. We didn't care where you lived, as long as you were cool. These were the days when we actually had an official "Smoking Area" on campus at the HS. Won't see that anywhere these days!

Favorite hang out then was Busse Woods or Lions Park. There was cool little record store/head shop in the strip mall by the Ben Franklin and Ace Hardware that also sold some instruments. Spent a lot of time there too. The guitarist in my HS band bought his first cheap LP copy from that store. Great memories!

Sorry for the hijack!

[LucSulla]

I wanted a Les Paul double cut. Between this website and (ironically, looking back) Ed Roman's rants about Gibson, I decided to give a Studio a shot.

[maggieo]

I was 18 and it was 1983 and I'd had a Peavey T-60 for a while, but it was heavy and ugly and I kind of hated it. So, I took it to Dietze Music House here in Lincoln to trade it in.

Doug Fenton, the guy who ran the Pro Shop, listened to my complaints about the Peavey and he said that he knew the perfect guitar for me, one that a beginner could keep for a lifetime and it'd always be the best guitar anyone around had. He pulled down this 1981 Hamer Special and we're still making music together.

1981 Hamer Special And Swart Atomic Space Tone, July, 2009 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

It's got a transparent flame top you can't quite see in that photo. And yes, I like and use the out-of-phase setting! Oh, and it got a re-fret in 2005 with non-jumbo frets. I love it even more now.

[a.bandini]

Hey Maggieo, that's really cool. Nice photo, too.

[Hamer95USA]

I got into Hamer guitars around 1988 from a neighbor who lived nearby in Hayward, CA. Ray had an '80s red sunburst finish bound & crown Standard with a black Kahler bridge on it. I had an '81 Ibanez Destroyer II and a Kramer Pacer with 3 single coil pickups & Rockinger bridge (it sucked!!). I ended up modifying the Kramer and sold it to a friend. I used to come over and jam with my friend, compare his Standard guitar to my Destroyer II guitar, and realized that both were great guitars. For some reason, the neighbor's wife, got jealous of my friend and broke the neck off of his Standard guitar. I felt bad for him and took him to Left Is Rite guitar shop in Hayward where Pamelina (guitar graphics artist for major guitar companies) was working out of at the time. Pat Serna, the luthier, got the guitar repaired & refinished. Eventually my friend sold his condo, moved to Colorado, sold the Standard (Why?), and later on, divorced his wife. I'm still in touch with Ray, but I told him that the Standard you sold off was worth more money than what you sold it for. If you run across a red sunburst bound & crowned Standard with a black Kahler bridge and a dark finish on the back of the neck near the body somewhere in Colorado, it's the guitar I used to jam on over 15 years ago.

I went through a phase of buying different guitars/amps/pedals/rack effects, looking for my sound, joining better bands, and knew that eventually I would own my Hamer guitar. I joined this website and bought my first Hamer, a '95 Studio with binding with dot inlay. I know it's back with one of its original owners now. I now own quite a few Hamer guitars that are built with high quality, sound great, and have great playability. Tone to the bone!!

Guitar George

[Sugartune]

1st sighting and lust was in high school. The best (technically proficient) band around had a guitar player with a black Sunburst. It was sweet, every bit of it.

Fast forward a couple of years to around 99 or 2000 and I stumbled across Ed Romans website. Which I read and read and read....and read. He had high praise for Hamer and it led me to frequent scours of the internet for more info.

All the while, I couldn't afford a new Hamer (nor did I ever see another one in the wild). I was just heading into University and my Mexi Strat was doing just fine.

Then in '04, my dad started working at Kaman, in the industrial side and told me about the employee discounts. Basically I could pick any production model, I'd have to wait 4-6 months (which helped me save for it), but the most expensive model capped out at around 1800 CAD.

I went back and forth between Studios and a Standard Custom. Eventually I chose a Studio Custom in Aztec Gold, ordering in Summer of '05, it was about 1500 CAD. It arrived in early December, but in '59 burst. I liked it, so didn't even bother to question the colour change.

This year will be our 10th anniversary

[Gino]

I actually got my first Hamer by accident.

I had this 1964 Gibson ES 330 - retrofitted with humbuckers and new Grover tuners and a fixed headstock repair. This was 1979 - the advent of hi gain, which didn't work too well with the all hollow 330. Upon inquiry at my favorite dealer he recommended filling up the body with - construction foam !! Well, the result was a mess, because the foam would not dry out inside the body due to lack of ventilation. So it "grew" like the proverbial porrage... through the f-holes, the pickup cavities and the pot holes. A nightmare!!

Later that day I went to see my "expert" and he was pretty embarrassed and as a result of my complaining he agreed to trade my messed up 330 for a new guitar. I told him I wanted a Les Paul, he said he didn't have one in the store right now, but he said he got something "just like a Les Paul". Guy went to the back, returned with a black case and home I went with a brand new '79 black b/c Hamer Sunburst - courtesy of Frank U.'s sales efforts in Germany!

I only had heard little of the brand as there were a number of new US maker's instruments coming to our stores like Schecter, Travis Bean etc. Anyway, the impression was lasting, even though I had to part with the Sunburst 3 years later because another "able repairman" (no Murkat or BCR Gregs available...) ruined it while fixing a headstock break...

So, as a result of my previous Hamer-experience, I bought a NOS '92 FM Special unseen over the net. Been hooked ever since

[tripp2k]

I'm a TGP fanatic and had a Bad Cat amp that I wanted to trade for a guitar around 2004/5. Was traveling across the country and a fellow TGPer located in Chicago had a Hamer Korina Jr. available and we cooked a trade and I stopped by his house while passing through Chicago. That guitar was so beautiful. I fell in love. Dove into the rich history and obviously found HFC and became hooked. I let that Jr. go to someone up in NY because it was way neck heavy and I got tired of fighting it. Along the way, I picked up the TV Yellow Standard from a guy here. Too heavy and sold it. Picked up a Studio that I had to sell. I've gone nuts recently (last 3 months) and have picked up the following and I think I'm just about done '87 Chaparral, '93 Natural Special, '99 Korina Standard, '05 TV Yellow Junior and '05 Korina Junior (yep, found one that balances great). I'd still like to grab a Studio Custom and I might pick up another shredder at some point but I'm happy with my Hamerism. I do have a Strat and a Tele, too. I have zero interest in other brands of guitars. Hamer and Fender for me all the way.

[maggieo]

Hey Maggieo, that's really cool. Nice photo, too.

Thank you!

I finally got a shot of my Special that shows the flame:

Hamer Special, August 15, 2015 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr

Those DiMarzio pickups are sure wonderful.

[Ting Ho Dung]

So it's a Special FM? Nice.

[Steve Haynie]

So it's a Special FM? Nice.

The Special FM came out in the 90's and had a 1/4" maple cap. The early 80's Specials had a maple veneer that was less than 1/16" thick. They are not the same.

[Ting Ho Dung]

So it's a Special FM? Nice.

The Special FM came out in the 90's and had a 1/4" maple cap. The early 80's Specials had a maple veneer that was less than 1/16" thick. They are not the same.

So they are essentially a Sunburst not bound and crowned?

[Steve Haynie]

Yes.

[maggieo]

Cool!

[a.bandini]

These are all fun stories. Thanks for sharing them.

About 6 years ago I started working with a guy who has a "lot" of guitars. I mentioned to him I was looking for a good quality humbucking guitar and what might he recommend?

He told me about Hamers, and said they did things really well, and could be had for a reasonable price. He's very understated.

A few months later I picked up a Redwood Studio on EBay and found my way here, and have become totally dependent on you guys and the few ladies who make and keep this forum a great place.

I'm not sure which is better: the Hamers or the HFC. I know I love both. I'm a living room guitarist, but nearly every night I put one of them back on the wall and say to myself, "I really love these things."

Many thanks to all.

[ZR]

I just remembered the old site...from FL? That showed a full page of hamers in landscape mode. I bought my 2nd one, '89 chap custom...thanks to hamstd who easily could have outbid me, but he was nice and enabled me to get it. He still has first right of refusal if I ever sell... Which won't happen! My first was a centaura that toberino still has. I had a Cali for a short while but sold it to scarylady? Or something like that...anyone remember? I think he was from Canada? My chap just sounded and played better even though a Cali was always the dream guitar for me...or so I thought.

Picked up a duotone, sold it, missed it and just bought one again in black with bartolinis. I've also had a great Daytona in blue trans/ rosewood. And, I also have a '86 cruisebass in black, setneck.

Hamers are great!

[Feynman]

I'm sure I've typed the story many times, so I will keep it short.

In 2007 I got the bug to try out electric guitars, turned to Google, found a big classified section on this place called the Gear Page...I wanted a Les Paul, so I'd visit and type "Les Paul" into the search engine. Some guy had listed a Monaco Elite for sale that popped up in my results because he had written something like "the best Les Paul I've owned," and it was beautiful and reasonably priced.

So, I Googled and started reading about Hamer, found this place, and my life was forever changed. I bought a couple more Hamers since then and ended up liking them very much. More than that I ended up liking the HFC, and it has been a daily visit for years now.

Most of the time I don't really feel I belong here, but you jerks always keep me checking back in...

--

[BlueRedWhite]

I got a Hamer cause guys like chicks that know axes...

Seriously, i was on to super strats, Ibanez, Ibanez Jem...but then i saw a Cali imported...and Cali Elites...and my knees went weak

Then i discover Specials, and then Special P90s, which is like a guitar with big balls, and i love the sound of it.

And then, i needed something to play acoustic and electrical without switching guitars..and oh mirage, there was a three hole Duotone waiting for me...with P-90s, which is like a guitar....

Seriously, i remember someone showing the differences between the finishing on Gibson and on Hamer...that kinda fixed me with Hamer for life hopefully...i don't see myself buying PRS or another brand...i don't know...i like my Hamers

[hairgrey]

I was late to the game in learning to play. My guitar teacher was a total Hamer guy. I started out thinking that a Rickenbacker or Gibson would be best, but he slowly convinced me of the quality of Hamer guitars and ultimately made me a believer. So much so that I sold my Gibson Les Paul and Rickenbacker 360 and now have 3 Studio Customs, 2 Specials and a sweet Standard on the way. As I have matured in my guitar ability, I am even more sold on Hamer and do not foresee ever buying anything else.

[Roshark]

I have always heard of Hamer guitars . I had seen photos and magazines ads but never played one until Guitar Center stopped caring Gibsons in the early 2000's. GC had Hamer's on the wall instead ! I picked up a silver P-90 Artist plugged it in and could not put it down . Acoustic guitars were my thing at the time . With a cranked amp I could dial in any tone I wanted from the guitar . Shimmering clean, mellow jazz, blues , rock crunch to screaming banchie lead and everything in between . And ....... the guitar almost played itself . Great build quality and a smoking deal price . It has been my #1 go to guitar ever since . I never thought I would ever need another electric guitar ..... until I played Newport , then a Studio, Standard, and then a Monico III, and a Daytona . Oh shit then I found out they make all these guitars in KORINA ! KORINA ! More addiction and love . I have been sold ever since . Thanks to everyone here for being very willing enablers .