Hohner HJ5

This is a semi-hollow single-cutaway guitar with a soild center block in the body and strangely enough it has a harp shape gold string tailpiece. For a great on-line photo of this guitar see:

http://www.activemusician.com/store/showCloseup.asp?img=/images/store/full/HS_HJ5-VS.jpg

Guitar is made in Korea. My guitar was made in 2007.

Scale Length: 24.75"/628.65mm
Body: Semi-Hollow Mahogany w/Arched Spruce Top
Binding: Ivoroid
Neck: Bound/Set Mahogany
Width at Nut: 41mm
Width at Last Fred: 55mm
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Frets: 22
Inlay: Pearoild Split Parallelogram
Pickups: Dual Tesla VR-60 Classic
Electronics: 2 Vol, 2 Tone, 3-way Pickup Selector
Tuners: Die-cast & gold plated
Bridge: Floating Rosewood Adjustable
Harp shape Trapeze Tailpiece
Hardware: Gold
ONLY Available Finish: Vintage Sunburst

This is a jazz, blues guitar. The "TESLA" Humbucker pick-ups are moderate output. The pick-ups are wound to sound warm & rounded. They are wax potted. The noise level is zilch / zero. Quieter than Seymour Duncans in my other guitars. No hum. The tonal variations by rolling down the volume & tone knobs ain't much. Rolling down the volume just barely trims off some treble, not much though. The tone knobs with the current capacitors are useless. Nothing happens from 10 to 2 on the knobs for either pick-up, then wind down to "0" & the tone goes flat dead brown. No treble at all, no tone at all, just muddy & masked bass notes come through - Not a pretty sound. Someday I'll open the guitar up to change the tone capacitors.

Factory quality control is good on this Korean guitar. I've owned Corts, Samicks, Ibanez guitars made in Korea. Some were great, some were crap. This Hohner is pretty high quality. Actually side by side comparison against my real 1965 USA Epiphone Casino shows this Hohner to be BETTER made. The wood seams are cleaner, the varnish is smoother, the plastic binding is smoother. The Epiphone is maple plywood laminate, the Hohner is soild wood everywhere. The Hohner top is spruce.

Playing action after adjustment is very good. The neck is a flat C profile. It fits my short fingered hand pretty well. The bridge is floating rosewood. No tune-o-matic saddles so the intonation can not be made PERFECT for every string, but it comes pretty close accroding to my Seiko digital tuner. The guitar sounds in tune up and down the neck. Chords resonate well. Nice note sustain.

Guitar feels solid. Advertised weight of 6 pounds was wrong! (I wanted a featherweight guitar). This guitar weighs in at 9 pounds. The center block is Chunky! So expect a Les Paul weight on your shoulder. All the hardware is solid, smooth functioning. The tuners stay put, the guitar stays in tune. A thoroghly dependable guitar. A workhorse.

I bought this guitar new from a 3rd party. I've had no interaction with Hohner. Hohner guitars do not have a large retail network in the USA. Hohner USA is headquartered in Richmnd Virginia, so I expect there are English speaking Americans to help solve problems, should a problem occur.

I took my 1st guitar lesson July 8, 1960. I've forgotten more guitar information than most other players have ever learned. I have bought, sold, played, appreciated, and destroyed (just a few) 1,000's of guitars. I owned a musical instrument shop for 5 years. I went broke because I loved guitars more than I liked hustling to make money.

This Hohner is a good working man's guitar. Normal retail price is around $650. I paid 1/2 that price for "used". A Steal of a deal.

In this price range a Samick RL2, Cort Source, Schecter C1(Also made by CORT) would be comparable. This Hohner is much better quality than Johnson, Michael Kelley, S-101, or the SX guitars made for Rondo music. My advice is to stay away from Chinese made guitars with the exception of Eastman. (Eastman guitars are quite fantastic). All Chinese large production guitars are crap. They are made poorly, from junk materials, with slave labor, that pollute the earth to the extreme.

Buy the best guitar you can afford. If your budget for a semi-hollow guitar is $600, this Hohner would be a good choice.