1960 HOFNER 470/S/E2V ELECTRIC ARCHTOP GUITAR

FITTED WITH ELECTRONIC TREMOLO

POT CODE: 469S

BODY DATE: 20/1/1960

COURTESY OF DIETER SEROWY, GERMANY:

DIETER EXPLAINS ABOUT HIS GUITAR:

I had to travel about 1000 miles to collect the guitar from Bavaria, which isn't exactly around the corner to where I live in the North of Germany. Anyway, it was worth the trip as the Hofner has turned out the be a very rare guitar.

I started to have a closer look when I returned back home, and with a January 1960 Body Date and a 469 Potcode, it seemed quite clear to me that this 470 had very likely been assembled early in 1960. I hadn't seen any other 470 equipped with a tremolo circuit before, and when I looked at the information given on the website then I was sure that this might be one of the very first to be fitted with such a device.

After a bit of cleaning it was easy to see that this 470 was almost mint, with even the hard case was in excellent condition. There was quite a bit of case candy to be found, together with old strings and things like that. All original 1960s. It was hard to believe that this guitar had seen much use, and indeed, when I opened up the battery compartment, I found an old battery which was the sort of battery was produced in Germany in the 1950s and 1960s and which used to cost about 0,55 Deutsch Marks. So, it seems to be quite realistic that this guitar had been used for the last time in the 1960s before being stored in the hard case, which is pretty incredible. The battery didn't leak, thank God!

So I took the guitar to my technician, to check if the console, the pickups and the tremolo circuit were still working. The plug is different to the normal 1/4" jack plugs used exclusively today.

My technician took the tremolo unit out of the guitar.......an impressive thing which looks like it was built in WW2. Anyway, when he fitted a new battery to the circuit, it worked outright. This battery has a rather unusual size, but you can still find them.

The photo  and notes below will help to explain how to control the tremolo circuits.

1 - You need to switch the chicken head to turn the tremolo unit on, but this knob is also responsible for the speed of the tremolo effect. The guys at Hofner have written "slow" and "quick" on the red ring there. 

2 - This knob is responsible for intensity/depth of the tremolo effect. 

3 - When you have switched the tremolo circuit on by turning the chicken head (1), you can use the switch (3) to easily turn the tremolo on and tremolo off. The big advantage of this is that you can keep the setting of speed and intensity of the tremolo effect and turn it on and off whenever you want. This switch will not do anything if the tremolo circuit is not being activated by using the chicken head (1) beforehand. 

 This Hofner is a stunning guitar. The tremolo is great fun and sounds rather different to for instance the tremolo on my old Fender amp.

DETAILED PHOTOS OF THE GUITAR'S ELECTRICS:

The Tremolo Control

Underside of the Rectangular Control Console, showing the Pot Code