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| Hohner Guitars |
Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Company is the current name of Hohner Musical Instruments Company. This long standing German company is mostly known for manufacturing fine harmonicas.
Since 1857 clock maker Matthais Hohner has been producing the world's best harmonicas.
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| Hohner Products |
Through the years Hohner has also made other instruments such as accordions, bandoneons, melodions, melodica, the clavinet, and the pianet (electric piano).
During the 1960’s, Hohner's UK subsidiary branched into the guitar market. The first guitars were named after districts in London, included the Kingsway, the Holborn, the Farringdon and the Metropolitan.
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| Hohner Zambesi |
The second run of guitars were given more exotic names (Amazon, Zambesi).
By 1962 UK Hohner had set up a deal with The Kay Guitar Company to manufacture and distribute guitars under the Hohner brand name.
During the early 1970’s Hohner shifted their source to Japanese made guitars. The Contessa by Hohner name was used for classical guitars. In 1974 Hohner registered a trademark for use on guitars imported from Japan.
In 1976 Hohner offered the 300 Limited Edition series and the 400 series, which were mostly plywood acoustic guitars.
The 600 and the 700 series were better quality instruments, and featured solid wood soundboards.
It was in 1977 that the company began earnestly offering electric guitars. There certainly are Hohner electric guitars that predate this year, but instruments of this era were of much better quality. Most were replicas of Fender or Gibson products. These were still Japanese made and generally built at the Moridaira factory] in Matsumoto or the Terada factory.
Guitar production remained in Japan through 1983. By 1985 most guitars were built in Korea. The electric guitars of this era included the budget range Arbor series, and the better quality Professional range.
The Professional Series included of some headless basses and guitars which were based on a licensing agreement with Ned Steinberger. The Hohner line-up of electric guitars also included Strat and Super Strat copies, and the TE (Telecaster) models, as well as the L (Les Paul) style guitars. Most of these instruments were built at South Korea’s Cort Guitar factory.
In 1990, the English guitar maker Alan Entwistle joined Hohner UK. Entwistle had been fascinated by the electric guitar since he was a child. He designed his own line of guitars, as well as adding his technology and name to Hohner instruments.
Entwistle developed the ATN circuitry. This was a series of electronics built in to a guitar that enabled the player to achieve a variety of musical tones, such as Surf, Country Rock, Blues Rock, and Jazz by turning a knob on the face of the instrument.
Entwistle also developed his own series of guitar and bass pickups. These features were added to the Hohner Revelation series of guitars. The professional versions of the Hohner Revelation guitar were designed in the UK and made at the Delicia factory near Prague in the Czech Republic at the Hohner Custom Shop. Some were produced under the brand Rockwood by Hohner in the mid-1990s.
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| HS Anderson Mad Cat |
This guitar became notable when the musician Prince purchased one in the late 1970's and it became his favorite guitar.
Hohner recognized this and created reissues including the Hohner THE Prinz, Hohner TE Prinz and Hohner The Artist HTA490.
Prince himself had multiple luthier copies of the guitar made, some of them indistinguishable from the original.
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| Hohner B2A |
Another notable instrument was the Hohner Professional B2 headless bass introduced in 1985. It used a bridge licensed from Steinberger and was available with passive or active pickups, the latter designated B2A, as well as a five-string active version designated B2AV. The B2 proved a popular alternative to the much more expensive Steinberger headless basses and remained in production until at least 2012.
The JT60 Hollywood was designed in the UK but produced in Korea from 1991 to around 1996 and was an offset guitar similar to a Fender Jaguar but with a Fender Stratocaster style pickup and control layout. This guitar was designed by Alan Entwistle, who joined Hohner UK, and featured Entwistle's own ATN tone circuitry to emulate different guitar types.
The first production Professional model JT60 Hollywood were displayed at the British Music Fair in June 1991 where orders for it greatly outstripped those of the more conventionally Stratocaster-shaped ST59 ATN model which had been produced because of fears that the JT60 was too unconventionally shaped.
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| Article 12/14/2014 |
Hohner offered many models of acoustic and electric guitars, but abruptly left the guitar market in 2015.
©UniqueGuitar Publications (text only) 2026
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