Hamer Newport

The mine is of the 2004.
I have it for a year.
Very confortable.
Orange.
Very good neck. Low action and no buzzing.
Two seymour duncan Phat Cat, and bigsby tremolo.
These pickups are the best in this world. Really you can get the best sounds.
The tone control is the best tone control in the world.
I play rock, and i buy this guitar because i like well made guitars (and Gibson are not) because i like low action and good construction. sorry to sat this, really. I know Gibson is a legendary trade, but really, 50 years after, gibson should do better instruments. In the past there was not other thing than Fender and Gibson, but today...
With this guitar you can play country, blues (pure blues), rock, hard rock and heavy metal (try it!!!!), jazz, ...all what you want.

Here is one the best guitars in the world.
If you have one. don't sell it, this guitar is a classic. Its sounds is great.

Hamer?
If you like vintage instruments, but modern comodity: HAMER.
Low action without buzzing. Really estable neck.

Very good woods. Very good hardware. Very good pots...
Sure, you can rely on it.

2001 Newport with a carved spruce top, duncan Phat Cat pickups and a Bigsby. The neck and body are solid mahagony. One tone and one volume knob along with a three position switch. Mine has locking Sperzels now but Grover Super Romatica tuners are stock. It has a medium large neck profile that fills your hand nicely without being massive.

Wow, this guitar is alive!!! It is simply magic. It is so responsive you won't believe it when you first play it. It sings loudly even unplugged. I play it through a 1964 Blackface Fender Deluxe or a 1965 Blackface Fender Bassman. I use an outboard Fender reverb tank as my only effect. It gets great blues tones which is what I am after. It doesn't sound exactely like a 335 (I think it sounds way better) so if you are looking for a 335 buy it. It gets a full rich sound with a bite that is amazing. I think the Newports sound best with the Phat Cat pickups as opposed to humbuckers. Try them both if you can before you buy. This is a great sounding guitar.

It is as good as any guitar I have ever played. It is top notch for sure. I wish all guitars were made this well.

I bought mine used and it was beat to hell. It still sounded awesome and that is why I bought it. Whoever abused this guitar before me should be taken out and shot. However, they did prove that this guitar will take a beating and still perform at the highest levels.

They were very nice when I called them for information on the guitar. I also need a couple parts and they shipped them out real fast.

I have been playing for 25 years. I have owned more than 100 guitars including vintage Gibson and Fenders. This Newport is magic. It will stay with me forever. If lost or stolen, I would immediately buy another one. If you need a thinline hollowbody, this one can't be beat.

My Newport was purchased in 2001, and I've had several years to play it now. It is a double cutaway hollowbody electric guitar with a solid spruce top, and a hollowed-out mahogany body, the same basic construction method as a Fender Thinline Tele. The body, neck, and headstock are bound all around with ivoroid. It is equipped with two "Phat Cat" single coils, one vol one tone, three way selector, Bigsby whammy bar, tune-o-matic bridge, and Grover "Imperial" tuners. The fretboard has a 24 3/4 inch scale length, and is made of rosewood, with MOP dot inlays on top and side. The frets are of the narrow type.

My style of music is mostly jazz and rock (Razz?) Anyway, the guitar fits this genre very well. With both pickups, or the neck pickup, it can have a very warm sound. Switching to the bridge pickup, one gets a more Tele sound, you know, "twangy." I kinda like it. The Phat Cats do a great job at making each string heard, even at low volumes. I don't really try to make the sounds of other guitars (i.e. Tele's, 335's etc.) with the Newport, it has a tone all it's own. If it were a copy of one of the above, then a comparison would be proper. The Newport is its own animal.

The factory setup was a bit low, it buzzed a little. I raised the strings about 1/32 of an inch, and made a slight relief adjustment, and now it's perfect for me. The pickups needed no adjustment.
The fit of all the parts is superb. The color of mine is "Vintage Natural," and its beautiful. The binding and finish are flawless.
Two things however, one (a bit nit-picky) is that one of the screws to the Bigsby was buggered-up; the other was that the selector switch seemed a bit chinsy, which later proved to be a problem. If these two items were as perfect as the rest of the guitar, I would have rated it a 10.

Even though the Newport is a hollowbody, it has a bullet proof finish, and seems very tough. I think that it could withstand live playing and be reliable enough to gig without a backup. The strap buttons are routed and attached with shock mounts - they ain't comin' off! The harware is solid (except for the selector mentioned above) and should last very long. I depend on it.

Here's the problem. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I bought the guitar from an "unauthorized dealer." You see, even though I had them special order this Newport from the factory, and even though Hamer was thrilled to ablige their request (and mine), I have an unwarranted guitar. That kinda shows me that they don't really stand by their instruments. I called Hamer asking about getting the selector replaced, and they said that they couldn't do the work, but they'd send me a replacement. It never came. I spoke to the same service rep again, and reluctantly, he said he'd send another. I still never got it. I gave up on Hamer. I took it to my dealer who is now repairing it at minimal cost. Hamer's lifetime warranty means very little in my opinion, because basically it only covers wood. And that only if you buy from an "authorized dealer."

I've been playing for over 25 years. I own an Epiphone Scroll (SC450), a Parker Fly Deluxe, a Taylor 314, a DeArmond Pilot Pro Bass, and a Yamaha Silent guitar nylon string.
I love my Newport, and despite my run-in with Hamer, it is still my favorite guitar. If something ever happened to it, I would buy another...this time from an "authorized dealer."
I wanted a hollowbody, something with a little more balance than a 335, with a slightly smaller body as well, good sound, and good looks - the Newport is the one. I compared to many hollowbodies - PRSs, Gibsons, Thinline, Godin. The Newport won. It is very much it's own guitar, and I think that it's unfair to try to make it sound like others.
I probably would have been better-off getting a Newport Pro (without whammy bar) because I don't use it that much. But overall, the Newport is an awesome guitar.
I think that the luthiers at Hamer are top notch, and put out one of the best products on the market. But I also think that if they only guarantee if bought from "authorized dealers," then they should only sell to "authorized dealers." But when something is special ordered by name straight from the factory by the consumer, it should definitely come with the full warranty.

See below: Tone, Volume, 2 Phat Cats, 3-way, tune-o-matic, Bigsby. mostly hollow.

No coil splitting, phase reduction, locking trem, active electronics, etc. Hence the 8.

A unique sounding guitar, that can evoke tele, gretsch, and early 175 tones. - A beautiful pallet with which to create fresh tones.

If you want to re-create the sound of another guitar, look elsewhere.

Equal to any, far better than most.
There is a small rattle that comes and goes. Possibly a loose pick-up tensioning spring, but this is a quibble.

Everything is solid, but it is an angled-head-stock hollow-body with a bigsby. I imagine you could damage it pretty easily if you dropped it. With care, it should be completely reliable.

Never used.

Played for 38 years, on and off. It is now my main guitar. I also have a very nice Yamaha SA2200 (ES335 style), 2 strats, and a parlor accoustic. Amps: Customized 65 DRRI, THD Univale w/vintage Mullards, Yamaha T100C, Fender Champ, 2X12 and 2x10 custom cabs by Jenkins.

If stolen I would get another. I chose it for its uniqueness and quality. It's sound complements my voice, and I love the Bigsby in spite of stringing and tuning fussiness common to all Bigsby equiped instruments.

I intended to buy an SG or PRS with P90s, both of which are fine guitars, but this one just grabbed me away and I left the shop without any regrets.

Don't buy one! I don't want you to sound like me.

I have a 2001 stock Newport: Small bodied thinline hollow archtop electric guitar (sized about halfway between an ES335 and a double cutaway Les Paul) with a mahogany neck and body, spruce top and rosewood fingerboard. Seymour Duncan Phatcat (humbucker sized P-90) pickups, Bigsby tailpiece, tunomatic bridge, single tone and volume controls, three way pickup selector, Grover Imperial tuning machines. Gibson scale (24.75"), 22 frets, ivroid binding, transparent sparkle orange finish. Fitted with Dunlop strap-locks.

The neck is medium chunky and very comfortable and effortless to play. I'd prefer locking tuners just because they would make re-stringing less of a nightmare with the Bigsby, and would improve tuning stability in general.

I play pop and rock music with occasional bits of jazz, country and folk thrown in. My amp tones range from clean to medium crunchy. I like a guitar that can twang like a Tele, chime like a Ric and groove like a jazzbox. The Newport can cover all this territory and not break a sweat. The spruce top gives this guitar incredible responsiveness...every nuance of your playing gets amplified and accentuated. This guitar will actually help you improve your technique because every flaw in your playing will be audible. On the other hand, if you've worked for years on your technique this guitar is the big pay-off, because all that effort shines through brilliantly with this guitar.

The controls on this guitar are simple but amazingly useful across their entire ranges. Most tone controls suck the life out of a guitar when you go below seven. The Newport's tone control brings out different qualities from off to full on. Similarly the volume control can help you milk every ounce of tone out of the Phatcats.

Oh, did I mention the Phatcats? Wow. Best pickup ever. All the sparkle of a single coil pickup with the grunt of a humbucker. Want less twang? Roll back the tone control. More oomph? Bring up the volume. All three pickup selector positions sound great.

I've played this guitar through all kinds of amps (Lexicon Signature 284, Tech 21 Trademark 60, Fender Cyber-Deluxe, Fender Hot-Rod Deluxe) and it sounds great through all of them. Unplugged this guitar has the complexity of a fine acoustic...must be the spruce top.

This guitar probably isn't the best choice for high gain freaks, but why would you want to mask this guitar's sound under a blanket of distortion?

The setup was perfect from the factory: low action (I actually raised it a hair), amazing finish. Yeah, I know "Transparent orange sparkle" sounds gawdawful, but the sparkles are tiny and understate and just make this guitar come alive under the stage lights. The binding work is unbelievable. Open the control cavity and you'll see the neatest electronics work imaginable. Custom shop quality work.

Like all USA Hamers, this guitar is built to last. I have four and have never had a problem. I always gig with a backup, and since this guitar has a Bigsby you need to allow extra time for string changes. But that's just the nature of the beast.

These guys occasionally participate on the Hamer Fan Club message board and host a fan club tour every year. Couldn't be better.

I've been playing 30 years and until now had never considered a hollow bodied electric. I tried one out in a shop and it just blew me away. Now it is my number one electric guitar (over a Parker Fly Deluxe, American Standard Tele, Dean Tonic S, Hamer Diablo, Hamer Artist Mahogany, Hamer Archtop GT, G & L Legacy and a couple of Danelectros). I still reach for other guitars for specialized parts, but now I use the Newport as my starting point and don't stray from it often (and even then I usually don't get past my other Hamers).

I love Hamer guitars, but they have outdone themselves with the Newport. If this was stolen I might check out the Korina Newport, and the idea of a Koa Newport is intriguing to me. But I will always have a Newport in my stable of guitars.

Arch top semi-hollowbody with two Seymore Duncan "Phat Cat" pups. This was built in the USA factory. See other reviews for more details.

Well I've had this guitar for a couple of months and started playing in a new original "modern rock" band. I'm currently running it through a delay, chorus and TS-9 into a Fender Deluxe Reverb. I am pretty happy with the tone I am able to get. The Newport has a nice balance clean tone and with overdrive starts to scream. With the TS-9 the guitar doesn't feedback much at all, I played with a Ratt and that was a problem. This guitar is a great rhythm guitar and exceptional with solos, cutting through nicely. I'm giving it a 9 because there are nicer sounding guitars if you're willing to pay for them.

Awesome! The Newport has the nicest neck I've ever played. The frets are medium jumbo so you can dig in for sustain and vibrato. The finish is flashy (orange with flakes) and the bigsby adds a nice touch.

Seems sturdy.

I would give an overall rating of 9. Its a great guitar with its own personality and plays and sounds great. I would replace it if it was lost or stolen because its so fun to play.

2002 Hamer Newport - USA Made in New Hartford, Conneticut.
All solid wood, one piece carved mahogany back/sides, hand carved solid spruce top - hollow-body design with a block under the bridge and Bibsby tremelo. Fully-bound body, neck and headstock, with a rosewood fretboard, 3-piece "stressed-neck" design, and chrome Grover Super-Rotomatic machines. Seymour Duncan custom "Phat-Cat" pickups, volume, tone pots, 3-way pickup selector. Transparent Orange sparkle finish. Hamer hardshell case.

This guitar sounds like a hollow body guitar should sound. Open, airy, and woody sound. Chords retain their clarity, no matter what register one plays in. This is compliments of the excellent craftsmanship as well as the duncan "Phat-Cat" pickups. The single tone control is very responsive, and has a nice taper, useful across its entire sweep. The best sounding electric ive played, thats why i bought it.

Came set up with relatively low action. Strings were 10-42. I immediately switched them out with 12-52, and the neck DID NOT MOVE. I did not have to adjust anything on the guitar for action (only intonation). That stressed-neck design must actually work. The finish is dead-perfect and flawless; as is the binding work (the binding is even cut to follow each individual fret height), fretwork, and electronics.

This guitar seems to be as solid as any hollow-body ive seen. Stays perfectly in tune, strap buttons are shock mounted and straplock ready, and the neck is the best ive seen in a mahogony neck.

I talked to the hamer service dept. directly during the production of this guitar, and they are very friendly and helpful with answering questions about the instrument.
It has a non-transferrable lifetime warranty.
I've never had it repaired or worked on by anyone other than myself.

Been playing for about 12 years. Work at a music store, done hundreds of setups, repairs. This guitar is as soild as a hollow-body can get. It plays wonderfully, sounds beautiful, is very responsive, and is dead-gorgeous. I looked at plenty of guitars before ordering this one, and i was not disappointed. If it were stolen, i would order 2 more, to make sure I'd still have one left it another were stolen.

This guitar is a double cut-away hollow body guitar, similar in shape to an ES-335 but smaller. The body is made from a solid Mahogany back that has been carved out fitted with a solid carved Spruce top with two f holes. The neck is is a three-peice Mahogany neck with Rosewood finger board. It has a similar feel to vintage Gibson style neck shape and fret size. It has two Seymour Duncan "Fat Cat" single coil pickups (similar to P-90s) and a Bigsby tremelo, with a graphite nut for better tuning stability. It has one volume and tone control and a 3-way pickup selector. I would have liked to have had a separate tone control for each pickup but I'm getting used to the one set of controls. The main difference between this guitar and other semi-hollowbody guitars is that the guitar is a true hollow body with no center block. This guitar is made in Hamer's US factory which is making very high quality guitars these days. I got a very good deal on this guitar, so my choice of finishes was limited. I chose the trasparent Orange Sparkle finish. Although this wouldn't be my first choice of colors, the finish on this guitar is extremely well done. It's very eye catching and I've received lots of compliments on the looks alone. It comes with a good hardshell case.

I had been looking for a semi-hollowbody for quite some time since I had been using a Strat for most of my playing up till now. I had been playing more Jazz gigs and wanted to find something that was better suited for that sound but also could be used for other types of music that I do such as Blues, Country, Pop, oldies Rock, etc. I had tried some 335's and Gretch's before trying the Hamer Newport. What really grabbed me about the Newport was that it was actually a better sounding Jazz guitar than the 335 and could also venture into the Gretch/Tele territory as well. The price/quality was also much better with the Hamer than any of the Gibsons that I had tried. There are couple of things about this guitar that make it a real tone machine. First, since it is a true hollowbody the guitar seems to have an overall acoustic quality to the sound. The only way I can describe this is articulate. Every note seems to come out of the guitar with clarity and a lack of muddiness. The second thing that makes the tone so nice is the way the tone control is voiced. It has become as useful to me as the volume control. When the turn the tone control down it doesn't squash the high frequencies like most tone controls, it seems to make the pickup morph into a new direction. On the neck pickup it seems to take the guitar into a more traditional Jazz tone with the tone control down, turning the tone control up brings out the 335 and dynamic sounds. I've found some useful tones on the bridge pickup too - with the tone control cranked you can get some nice Tele/Gretch twanginess. When I push the amp into overdrive I can get some fantastic Beatle-esc flavored tones with the bridge pickup also. The middle position is realy inspiring for capturing the Rock-a-billy side of this guitar.
The Fat Cat single coils sound very full with a nice amount of low end. I actually had to turn down my bass controls on my amp to compensate for this. These pickups are very responsive to your pick attack, which makes for some nice lead sounds when your amp is right on the edge of overdrive. This is great for doing the Larry Carlton 335 thing on the neck pickup. Since the guitar is truly hollow its very easy to put this guitar into feedback at higher volumes. Fortunately it seems to feed back in a very musical sort of way. I'm thrilled with the sounds this guitar is capable of.

I bought this guitar trough an online retailer. When I pulled this guitar out of the case it was setup with very low action. I had a slight amount of buzz on the 6th string but it doesn't seem to translate to the amplified sound. It plays extremely well. Notes are easily bent with no buzzing or chocking off of the note. The vintage style neck shape feels great. The Bigsby is very smooth and seems to stay in tune as long as you don't try to dive bomb hard with it - I usually just use it for shaking chords, etc. and it works fine for this. It's much lighter than any electric I've ever had. I was also very impressed with the finish of this guitar. I don't think that they could have done it any better. The neck and binding are all top notch as well. I did have to lower the neck pickup just a tad since it seemed to have too much low end, but other than that it hasn't required much tweaking. Overall the Fit & Finish of this guitar are fantastic.

As with all hollowbodies made with good solid woods I would expect that the guitar is on the fragile side. I'm also a bit disappointed that they didn't design a pick guard for the guitar with the Spruce top and all. Spuce is a very soft wood and you would think that the finish will wear down after a few years where the pick hits the top. It seems to have a bullet proof finish on the top though. Maybe they used a lot of coats of laquer to compensate for the lack of pick gard or something. The Spruce top is also very thick with will also help in terms of reliability. The guitar seems very solid and I wouldn't expect anything to go wrong with it as long as I take care of it. I would definitely feel comfortable using at a gig without a backup. I put some strap locks on my strap right away - and, by the way, the guitar comes with strap lock style strap buttons - cool.

Don't know. I haven't needed to call them for any reason. It does have a lifetime warranty though, and these guys seem to know how to make a great guitar.

I've been playing for 26 years and I know what I like. I like a guitar that is well made, plays well, and delivers inpiring tones. This one definitely does it for me. I had looked for a hollowbody for almost a year before deciding on this one. I had tried everything from Gibson, PRS, Gretch, etc. and this one had everything that I was looking for, at a much more reasonable price as too. Some of the guitars I played were almost $1000 more than I paid for this and didn't sound as good to me. If it were stolen or lost I would go out and buy another one right away.

2000 USA-made base model Newport -- double-cutaway hollow body routed from a single piece of Honduras mahogany, 3-piece laminated mahogany set neck, 24-3/4" scale, 22 frets, hand-carved solid spruce archtop, f-holes, fully hollow, two hand-wound Duncan Phat Cat pickups (single coil in humbucker-sized pkg), one vol, one tone, and Bigsby with Gotoh tunamatic-style bridge. Non-locking chrome Grover Imperial tuners (the art deco style ones). Finished in transparent orange with tiny sparkles in it. Body bound in front, bound neck, bound headstock. Includes high quality Hamer fitted hardshell case, setup tool (philips screwdriver & hex wrench for adjusting neck tension rod), warranty, manual. Features are great but personally I'd like separate vol knobs for the 2 pickups and would prefer a roller bridge to get a smoother Bigsby action.

The basic sound of this guitar is open, airy, woody and complex, yet it has great tonal focus -- no random out-of-beat overtones or clashes. It has stunning clarity and can sound very bright, but without a hint of harshness. It has tremendous touch-sensitive dynamic range and can create a full pallette of sounds simply by varying the pick attack. For example, play the neck pickup clean and pick gently and you get better jazz sounds than many jazz boxes. Turn on both pickups and you can move from ES-330 territory to Tele just by how hard you lay into it and how high you have the tone knob set. The bridge pickup has a snarky yet sweet sound. The tones (and playability) of this guitar just keeps spoiling me. No matter which if my guitars I pick up, when I play this one afterward it just seems to outclass the others.
The single coils, the stunning clarity, and the expressive tonal responses to varying pick attacks also make this an extraordinary blues guitar.
Some reviewers here wanted this guitar for a 335 vibe. I have a 335-type guitar in a high quality Japanese Ibanez AS-180 with Duncan Jazz and '59 pickups. To me the Newport doesn't cop a 335 vibe so much as it surpasses it. Whatever a 335 does, the Newport does with more clarity and sweetness. If you want a higher output version of the Newport, the Newport Pro with stop tail and Seth Lover pickups should get you closer to the 335 sound. As for me, I don't aspire to or seek a 335 sound because I have a Newport sound, which to me outclasses and surpasses it.
And as others said, if you want Gretsch rockabilly, the Newport will dish it out in spades.
I don't give 10s for everything normally, but for my ears this is one of the best-sounding guitars I've ever played. And where you might find a guitar that sounds better in one aspect or another you'd be hard-pressed to find one that sounds so good for jazz, blues, traditional rock, country, and rockabilly.
All the sound characteristics mentioned above took another notch skyward when I put on Elixir 11-49 strings. Great match.

I have not messed with the factory setup because right off the rack it played better than pretty much anything I've ever picked up. As Guitar Player's review mentioned, the binding is the best applied of any electric they've encountered at any price. Frets are hand-seated one at a time and hand crowned and leveled. Not only is this my best sounding guitar, it is my best playing, and I truly have not found any materials, build or finish flaws. And all parts are top quality. I really like the taper of the tone pot because the entire range is usable. There is still plenty of treble when the tone is set to 4 or 5. An unqualified 10.

Other than that the guitar is a hollowbody and therefore more breakable than a plank guitar, this is a totally pro-quality heavy duty instrument. Grover Imperial tuners, Lubritrak (graphite) nut, handmade Duncan custom pickups, CTS pots, Switchcraft switch and jacks, very nice Gotoh bridge and genuine cast aluminum Bigsby. Strap buttons are specially mounted to avoid finish cracking or screw stripping and also accept Dunlop locking strap buttons.

Haven't had to use it but Hamer is very supportive of customers under warranty.

I've been playing guitar not quite 5 years. I also have the aforementioned Ibanez, a Hamer Anniversary, Hamer Phantom Custom, Gretsch Historic Series Synchromatic, and G&L ASAT Classic Semihollow. Amps include a '60s Sears/Silvertone 20w tube 1x12 combo, an Epiphone Electar 10, a Top Hat Club Deluxe and a Mesa/Boogie DC-10. The Mesa has proved to be a great match. Its high power and endless headroom on the clean channel complements the Newport's dynamic range very well.
I rate this guitar as highly as you can rate any kind of factory product. I've played luthier-built guitars that didn't play or sound better. I think to get better sound you'd have to spend many times the Newport's price and even then the improvement would be marginal if noticeable at all.

If it were lost, stolen or broken, not only would I seek out another, but I'd even be willing to sell other guitars to get one and wouldn't miss the others at all.
I compared this guitar to the Gibson ES-446 which is also a routed mahogany spruce-topped thinline. The Hamer was about $1500 less, but also beat the Gibson on musicality, tonal range, dynamic range, and especially clarity. It made the 446 sound like it was playing through a bag of dirty socks. And the finish and setup were much better. The Newport made the Gibson neck feel like it was finished with a crude rasp. And remember, the Gibson's street price is at least $1k higher than the Newport's list price.
My favorite feature is the way it gives up different tones just by how you vary pick attack. Next is its smooth and comfortable playability. The one thing I will change is to replace the bridge with a Schaller roller bridge to give better tuning stability. This has been much less of a problem anyway after I put the Elixir 11-49s on it. They seem to slide over the bridge much better.
I will not part with this guitar. Period.

This is a follow up to my review on this guitar.

After some time with the Newport, I found the tones to be too similar to my Tele Thinline. When I really wanted to dig in and get the 335 tone, this guitar got me 80% there. In an effort to bring it closer, I put in Duncan 59's which got me 90% there. But do you know what got me 100% there...a Gibson 335. Lesson learned. This is still a fantastic guitar for what it does. The Phat Cats are fantastic as are the Duncan 59's. Take it for what it is.

Double cutaway, carved spruce top, carved mahogany back and sides, Mahogany neck. Duncan Phat-cat pickups. Smallish 335 shaped body. Grover rotomatic tuners that look like Grover Imperials. 3 way pickup selector, 1 vol, 1 tone, Bigsby. Fairly fat neck that retains the same profile end to end.

It is, despite its look, an amazing sounding jazz guitar that can change in an instant to strat and tele sounds. It's uncanny. Best sounding pickups I've heard yet, punchy, bright, well defined even with the treble rolled off. Hugely versatile. For me, there is no guitar that sounds better than this.

The instrument is perfectly executed. The finish is a nice transparent orange with, and I can do without them, gold sparkle flecks all over. These are the only things I don't like about the instrument, but meaningless given the sound and playability. It's the highest quality instrument I've had in the 40 years I've played guitar. Nine for the gold flecks, otherwise ten.

I can hardly wait until it gets a little beat up and some weather checking, I think the patina will offset the goofy finish. But after a year of frequent gigging I'm afraid it's going to take a while for that because it has 14 coats of laquer and an unfortunately durable finish. I play live all the time and I only use one guitar unless I'm on something where I have to worry about breaking a string and won't have time to change. Otherwise for clubs I don't worry about it.

I don't know.

I've played for 40 years. I play different styles of jazz and blues type music. When I heard about the instrument, I thought no way, it doesn't look like a jazz guitar and it's goofy looking in a way. But in another way beautiful, but not something that I'd pick up because it looks like my type of guitar. When I played it though, I was completely gone, there was no turning back. Made my other instruments sound dull in comparison. I had to buy it. I didn't want to. I've even considered selling it, and I can't. I've owned probably 20 main guitars through my life, mostly big hollowbody jazz boxes. The resonance of this top, gives it the best woody sound of any of them despite the thinline design. It's like an evolution of ES330 meets the Byrdland. It's all the best features from guitars past rolled into one: Imperial style tuners, Mahogany Back and sides, spruce top, P90 type single coils, perfect big neck, Bigsby. There's nothing I can't do with this guitar. Sounds from Barney Kessel to Danny Gatton, and even my own somewhere in between. It's great. But I shouldn't have got the orange with gold flecks, I don't think the other finishes were available till later though. Oh well it's growing on me.

The guitar sounds amazing! If a word could describe the tone of this guitar, it would have to be 'passionate'.

I play the Newport through a Lexicon MPX-G2 and a Yamaha DG130/DG-S412V Speaker Cabinet configuration.

The action was maybe a bit too low when I bought it, so I had to
adjust it some myself. Over all, the guitar was beatifully crafted.
The cherry burst finish is just amazing!

After putting in some hours on the bigsby, the guitar could use another setup since it tends to go flat or sharp depending on the last push or pull of the tremlo bar.

I can't imagine why I couldn't depend on this guitar.

I've never dealt with them.

I've been playing for 18 some odd years and this is truly an inspiring instrument to play. This guitar is just a pleasure to play and it feels wonderful!!

Yes, I would buy another Newport in a heartbeat if mine were stolen :)

You know all the features from the other posts. I love the Bigsby, the Imperial tuners, the Fit and Finish, and the binding. All perfectly done.

I play Pop music (REM, Petty, Byrds, Police) and this guitar excels! The very useable tone control, turned to half, with the neck pickup, nails the 335 vibe. Tone wide open, bridge pickup, instant Rick/Tele sound. In the middle it has a sound all its own. Not as noisy as my tele with single coils.

No flaws in this beauty and the fit and finish are excellent. I never expect the pickups to be set perfectly as we all expect something differently. They were balanced, but I moved them both a bit higher for better break up.

The guitar is a hollowbody...proceed with caution. Feels ultra solid and has withstood my windmills and hard picking fine.

I have only used their dealer (Down Home Music, thanks Doug!).

I had my hollowbody jones and was ready to pull the trigger on a Paul Reed Smith Hollowbody. I posed the question to the PRS Forum with my expectations and the type of music that I play. The overwhelming majority on the Forum told me to try the Hamer Newport. They were right! The guitar exudes CLASS (With the exception of their name on the headstock...Come on guys! Would it have been that much work to put a little inlay versus the Silkscreen?- For this I will take off one point!)

I'm surprised more people haven't reviewed this instrument; it seems to be all the rage. As mentioned in the review before (or "below") mine, it has a bit of the ES-335 vibe: double cutaway, thin semi-hollow with the block to reduce feedback; but it has a solid carved spruce top, which is very nice. Two Seymour Duncan "Phat Cat" single-coil pickups, and a Bigsby. Just one volume and one tone control, which I like. I bought it used in April or May 2001; it was near mint, and it couldn't have been earlier than a 2000 model. It's the black cherry finish -- termed the "Montgomery Ward finish" by Matt Smith, but it's a sweet look. Has a nice set of Imperial tuners, I assume they're Grovers. Made in USA. Apparently the pickup cavities for the Phat Cats will accommodate humbuckers if you want to make that swap.

Very nice instrument. I took a chance because I bought it online and had never heard one in a store. I was hoping that the Phat Cats would pretty much give me a P-90 sound. It's a little more complicated. The Phat Cats are incredibly dynamically responsive; your picking attack has an enormous influence on your tone. They're just a little too "spanky" to be a true P-90 sound; but by the same token this is a more versatile instrument tone-wise. I don't think there are any pickups around that sound like these. With the neck pickup alone, you can get nice jazz and blues sounds. But at heart it's a rockabilly guitar, with the Bigsby and all. Very versatile instrument. Very well made, with nice appointments. The neck is a tad wider than I'm used (it seems to me somewhere between 1 11/16 and 1 3/4). With the solid spruce top and the Phat Cats, you get a lot for the money with this guitar -- it's easily a better deal than an ES-330 or ES-335, in my view.

Everything's fine. The frets (by design) hang a bit over the fretboard on both sides and catch the neck binding -- it's a cool look, but you can catch the high E-string on the fret when doing bends or pull-offs and that seems like a negative to me.

Couldn't say.

Never dealt with them. Them = "Hamer."

Not sure I'll keep it, but it's clearly an excellent guitar. Hamer made a lot of interesting choices in designing this instrument -- while it covers some of the territory of Gibson and Gretsch semi-hollows, the Newport is its own guitar. There's probably nothing on the market that exactly replicates it.

Much the same as the Newport Pro but with a Bigsby.Semi-acoustic, two f-holes, very 335 looking.Two Seymour Duncan phat-cat pick-ups seemingly specially designed for this guitar. Single tone and volume controls, three way switch. Bigsby trem, mahogany body, carved spruce top with nice wood matching.Ivory binding on body and neck. Fingerboard unfinished rosewood. Came with a nice hard-shell case.

With musical roots firmly in the 60's (Byrds, early Clapton) the Newport is ideal for this sort of sound. Plenty of jangle as well as a very BB King sound if required.A nice bright sound with plenty of depth. For me, the neck pick-up gives the best all-round sound. The bridge pick-up seems a little bright and sees to lose its edge when rolled off. Used through a Peavey Classic 30 it sounds just fine If distortion is your sort of thing it is very easy to get it to squeal like crazy and great for pinched harmonics! It really has a sound all of its own although leaning towards the Strat end of the spectrum rather than having the grunt of a Les Paul in spite of the humbuckers.

Played beautifully straight out of the box. Whether this was due to the set-up from supplier or manufacturer, impossible to tell. Low action and very easy to play. Wide,Gibson feel neck, although not nearly as deep as a Les Paul and much easier to play.Wide enough for easy finger picking. Bigsby is very stable and smooth. Very light in weight. Finish of this guitar is nothing short of amazing. Since it was bought unseen by mail order the color especially came as a surprise, a deep cherry burst with a really deep laquer. Almost too nice to gig.

It's a semi, so by definition its not going to take the hammering that a solid will. However it's very well put together and given reasonable care and attention should survive as long as its not stood on too often.

Apart from the impressive lifetime warranty (which incidently excludes claims against tone!) no comment except that Hamer have a web site with a section on specific queries.

Having played for over forty years this is a welcome addition to my guitars.(Les Paul, Strats and a Rickenbacher 12 string). Started out looking for a 335 but in the end delighted to have chosen the Newport. The only reservation might concern resale values where it might be outscored by the Gibson name. A really versatile good looking guitar capable of covering a wide range of styles and a delight to play.