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What's Your 'Personal Favorite' Hamer?


hamerhead

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Travis's thread about getting a variety of guitars got me thinking about the stack of really great Hamers that have come through here, only to be sold for lack of use. My most-used personal favorite Hamer is my '05 Junior.

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This is the second one. The first arrived with a small crack where they routed the trussrod channel  just slightly too deep for the thinner BCR headstock. Knowing they bandsawed that one made me cry a little. But its replacement - this one - is even better. At first the pickup was.....well, a Duncan. Pretty one-dimensional and anemic. Then Jay (murkat) performed his voodoo. His pickup transformed this guitar from 'really good' to the-one-by-which-all-others-are-judged. The 30th next to it in the photo was THE BEST Hamer I'd owned, but I was too afraid to play it for fear of doing damage. The Jr proudly shows its playing wear.

Let's see your personal favorite 'go-to' Hamer.

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For me lately it’s been my Mirage with Mojotone Quiet Coil 59’s in it. (Which are humbuckers voiced to sound like single coils) I’ll be playing that at tonights show along w a Special set up for E tuning slide. 

Ready to go at super low volume!!

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My 2002 Artist Korina HB, due to the neck. It simply fits me perfect. I have gigged and played her hard for the last 12 years. My first Hamer and the one by which all others are judged. I wore a set of frets off and had her re-fretted last year. Finally settled on pickups...Firebirds. 0006 has the big buckers covered for me FOREVER. 

I love this guitar. It is my go-to for anything and everything.

Duesenberg Trem.

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My favorite is a 1981 Hamer Special that I bought new and still have...! With the Checkboard case to match my strap and the head stock..!

 

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Wow, tough call.  As far as ones I own, it'd have to be the Artist Korina.  I just love that guitar.  It has the JB/59 pickups, which do pretty well to cover a lot of stuff.  Just roll off the volume on the bridge to clean up a bit but crank up some gain and it's fabulous.  The neck is a little bigger than I typically go for, but it feels right for that guitar.  

I also have a project Diablo II I've been working on. Hoping to get the time to finish that up soon.  That seems like a great all purpose machine.  

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I... I can't... uh...

If it's not the 97 'hog Standard you sold me, it's the well-loved Daytona I picked up cheap, but then again it's the 25th Anny Artist.  They're all different animals.

Best?  The Standard.  Have to keep one?  The Daytona.  Personal favorite? I... I can't... uh...

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There have been so many great ones, Two of the best ended up going away a few months ago. At the moment, I would nominate this one-off....

Double korina, long scale, ebony, goldtop, lightweight, upgraded (non-Duncan) pickups. What is NOT to love?

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My Talladega.  Some people love them, some don't.  Personally, I love the sharp V-contour of the neck carve.  I can totally get why others do not.  I've even contemplated using this neck as a template for any custom guitars I ever get in the future.

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The reason why I started the thread on multiple guitars came down to the fact that I love this neck so much,.  Would I just start buying up Talladegas and putting a crazy variety of pickups in them to offer me variety?  Would I order a couple of wildly different style Shishkovs and have Mike copy my Talladega's neck?  Or, would I just get a bunch of different guitars for total variety (as long as they have neck carves on the bigger side regardless of shape...)

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3 hours ago, hamerhead said:

Travis's thread about getting a variety of guitars got me thinking about the stack of really great Hamers that have come through here, only to be sold for lack of use. My most-used personal favorite Hamer is my '05 Junior.

DSCN5536small.jpg

 

 

LOVE that Junior.  A Junior style guitar is one I've never owned and is on my short list...

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2 minutes ago, Travis said:

My Talladega.  Some people love them, some don't.  Personally, I love the sharp V-contour of the neck carve.  I can totally get why others do not.  I've even contemplated using this neck as a template for any custom guitars I ever get in the future.

8E99E005-3036-448E-A609-B53615F4FC6C.jpeg

 

1B02362B-7874-4BAA-B0C0-285EDA8F2B56.jpeg

 

The reason why I started the thread on multiple guitars came down to the fact that I love this neck so much,.  Would I just start buying up Talladegas and putting a crazy variety of pickups in them to offer me variety?  Would I order a couple of wildly different style Shishkovs and have Mike copy my Talladega's neck?  Or, would I just get a bunch of different guitars for total variety (as long as they have neck carves on the bigger side regardless of shape...)

Acquiring different variations of "the same thing" just to be able to explore the (often) subtle differences can be another form of OCD. Trust me......

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4 minutes ago, django49 said:

Acquiring different variations of "the same thing" just to be able to explore the (often) subtle differences can be another form of OCD. Trust me......

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That group shot makes my shorts tight....

 

I did something like that years ago on a smaller scale with my Charvel 750xl's.  Japanese made for 1 year only, thick mahogany body, flame maple top, glued in 24 fret maple neck with rosewood fretboard and 24.75" scale.  The left and middle had sequential serial numbers.  I loaded them up with different pickups to explore the differences.  The middle one looked the best but the one on the right sounded the best (and was the first one I got).  They were sold long ago, helped fund the '78 Sunburst 8 0111 I used to have, among other things...

 

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Gotta be my Electraglide SMG that I picked up from Kof a few months back.  I've owned lots of Hamers over the years (including an early 4-digit Standard) and this one plays the best of any, and is so versatile too!  Just an unbelievable guitar with the perfect neck (for me anyway) and it sounds as good as it looks... 😎

 

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13 minutes ago, GuitarGuy65 said:

Gotta be my Electraglide SMG that I picked up from Kof a few months back.  I've owned lots of Hamers over the years (including an early 4-digit Standard) and this one plays the best of any, and is so versatile too!  Just an unbelievable guitar with the perfect neck (for me anyway) and it sounds as good as it looks... 😎

 

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The Holy Grail....

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I've had a few... the one I let go that was special was on of the nine koa-topped Studios. I put SD Antiquities in it and used it on every track of an album. It just recorded like magic, for some reason.

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It would be my '94 since it's the only Hamer I have left.  Killer top.  Cell phone pics don't do it justice.  Ebony board, bound headstock.  No Hameritis.  To paraphrase what the (HFC) seller said, "I'm sure there are others but I haven't seen one".  Bought this in '11 and I'm hanging on to it.

 

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Since last summer, I've been taking the same four guitars to every gig. My Les Paul R8 gets the most playing time. My Newport gets used on the first three songs of every show cause I need the Bigsby. And my Talladega gets played for maybe four or five songs where I'm looking for a "Fender" -ish tone. The fourth guitar is my Duesenberg 12 string which I use on three tunes kind of in the middle of the show.

My personal favorite Hamer is my Junior, but it doesn't get played much at all.

 

 

 

 

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37 minutes ago, Camstone said:

Since last summer, I've been taking the same four guitars to every gig. My Les Paul R8 gets the most playing time. My Newport gets used on the first three songs of every show cause I need the Bigsby. And my Talladega gets played for maybe four or five songs where I'm looking for a "Fender" -ish tone. The fourth guitar is my Duesenberg 12 string which I use on three tunes kind of in the middle of the show.

My personal favorite Hamer is my Junior, but it doesn't get played much at all.

 

 

 

 

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Mmm...  Newport, Talladega and a Junior. I could get on board with a collection like that...

Your Junior was always one of my favoites. 

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