It was acquired by Kaman Music Corporation in 1988, which was purchased in turn by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation in 2008. However, this first version did not survive through 84. Where Are Hamer Guitars Made - Martin Acoutic Guitars Shoes Jeff Murphy Standard, Sunburst The top has some awesome figuring that gives it a unique look. 1974 Original Gibson PAF humbuckers (many rewound by DiMarzio) Dick & Alex Alex Parche Standards (2), Sunburst Production was reportedly around 10 guitars per week. was very similar to the Sunburst Archtop, introduced in 91. Hamer ranks as one of the earliest boutique electric guitar makers, kicking off operations in Illinois in the early '70s. For pick players, these could be reversed. Standard Revisited Beginning in 83, locking vibrato systems predominated. Jun 16, 2012. By 1998 these logos had changed to a more stylized, italicized typeface. The body and neck were of mahogany, but the distinguishing feature was a carved top made of bookmatched chevron mahogany, a highly figured variety with dark striations. In the mid 80s the Kahler bass vibrato was offered as an option. For more tonal flexibility, in the middle position, the pickups were out-of-phase. Hamer USA Electric Guitars for sale | eBay First was the Phantom A5 guitar. Reaction score. New and used Fender Stratocaster Bass Guitars for sale in 85346 on Facebook Marketplace. In September of 78 a Standard would set you back $1,199.95, list. Ted Nugent Charles Huhn Sunburst The History of Hamer, Part One | Vintage Guitar magazine Hamer Phantom GT A5 Replica - Glenn Tipton Judas Priest Controls were two volumes and one common midrange tone, with the three-way again behind the bridge. Eagles Joe Walsh Sunburst Initially, the Blitz came with either the Sustain Block fixed bridge or Sustain Block vibrato. Are more to follow?" Pickups were hand-wound using oxygen-free Monster Cable wire, with gold covers signed by Seymour Duncan himself. Probably a set neck. Except for the bound flame top, the Standard was pretty close to a Gibson. 2023 Hamer Guitars | Hamer Guitars is a division of JAM USA LLC. It was shaped like a Vox Phantom with Hamer Phantom electronics(! Hamer Guitars - Wikipedia In 97, Kaman/Ovation found itself with excess capacity in its New Hartford, Connecticut, factory and operating a second (Hamer) factory in suburban Chicago. By the 70s, guitar players were cranking up much larger amps in large arenas. Hamer Lakeside Guitars Lakeside Park, KY, United States Hamer Standard 1997 Used - Very Good $600 + $75 Shipping This piece of gear has sold View similar gear from other sellers on Reverb View similar gear Watch Watch this gear and we'll notify you if it becomes available again. You will find original articles, full lists of Hamer USA models as well as old catalogues and articles from various sources. Sweet Andy Scott Standard The Ultimate Hamer USA Guitar Archive - Buddleja Garden As the Korean-made Hamers made their transition to become the Import Series around 98, the logo simply read Hamer, in Hamer block type, no USA.. Listed: a year ago Views: 724 Hamer Guitars was founded in 1973 by Jol Dantzig and Paul Hamer in Wilmette, Illinois. The Special Recent Studio versions of the Archtop and Archtop Artiste feature Wilkinson single-piece hardtail bridges. The pups in these MIK Hamer's are SD designed,whatever?, all I DO know is they are pretty sweet and as I stated, all that was TRULY needed on that Echotone was a new Harness, and all else was good,as good as your gonna' get for under $300. Colors were Amberburst and Vintage Orange. The History of Hamer, Part Four | Vintage Guitar magazine The 22-fret rosewood fingerboard is bound with pearl dot inlays. Some recent basses use Seymour Duncans. I found the neck to be a bit soft for me as I'm heavy handed. In 95 the Mirage was joined by the Mirage II, which differed in that it had a carved maple top and two Seymour Duncan humbuckers, with three-way select and no bypass switch. Futura is the name applied to some early 58 Gibson Explorers which were closer to the prototype sketch in the patent application than subsequent production models. Glenn Tipton's designed and used two very iconic Hamer guitars: the non-production Hamer GT Custom, introduced in 1986, and the Hamer Phantom GT. Hey Fitz,that is the same guitar only the one I'm looking at is red,2 knobs with Duncan pickups. It was a pretty nice guitar. Beginning in late 1987 serial numbers were again stamped into the wood. This first Hamer pretty much replicated a Gibson Flying V. It had a variety of pickups, though the bridge pickup was always a Gibson EB-3. C $510.90. Dantzig and Hamer had to work hard, schlepping examples around the world and getting them into the hands of players. The top was carved, highly figured silky maple. The unbound two-octave fingerboard had pearl dot inlays. Hamer Guitars are among the finest guitars ever built. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Hamer guitar players have always included pro guitarists who demand a lot from their instruments. Dantzig still has that first bass. It sort of reminds me of a cheaper PRS McCarty. Maybe $265.00 aint bad? There was a small black pickup, three-way select, volume and tone controls. Tuners were Grover Super Rotomatics, with the Art Deco buttons. Hamer Guitars and Basses | Reverb Hamer DC Flame Maple Studio Archtop Guitar Tonerider P90 Pickups Made in Korea . The Artist Archtop was an equal double-cutaway (as with most Hamers, upper horn slightly extended) with a mahogany body and ivoroid-bound carved flamed maple top. Ive always been a gearhead.. Newport All came with bolt-on maple necks, unbound rosewood fingerboards, dot inlays and chrome hardware. The guitar is pretty much mint with no fretware at all. The guitar was finished in a cherry sunburst lacquer. Many one-of-a-kind and prototype instruments have numbers that do not relate to either of the two numbering systems. It was held in Dantzigs Volkswagen Minibus. I paid $350 with a hard case and couldn't be happier. By the 90s, virtually all other vibrato guitars featured Schaller Floyd Rose systems, cast with a Hamer logo. The main bass strings were tuned as on a normal bass guitar, with the two smaller strings tuned in unison at an octave above. Well, we near the end of the long tale of Hamer USA Guitars, a saga that began in the early 1970s and is today a great success story in American guitardom. Like the Blitz Bass, the CruiseBass was offered until 90. Many guitars built between 86 and 89 came with OBL pickups made in Germany. Dantzig and Hamer did well with their business. However, an early American model may or may not have USA as part of the logo, but after 98 absence of USA in the logo indicates the guitar is imported. The seller is asking $265.00 for it which sound far to me. Guitar Brands That Came Back From the Dead | Reverb News The body was Honduras mahogany with an optional unbound flamed-maple top. Beginning in late 83, many featured top-mounted Kahler vibratos. Fender Stratocaster Bass Guitars for sale in 85346 - Facebook Great Condition USA MADE! The beginnings of Hamer Guitars (pronounced Hay-mer, not hammer) go back to those heady days of the early 70s, when Chicago was the breeding ground of soon-to-be-famous rock bands such as REO Speedwagon, Styx, and Cheap Trick. Controls were a three-way select, with two volume and one tone control. Artist Ultimate Around the time of the move Hamer introduced another variation on its semi-hollow Artist guitar, a top-of-the-line Hamer Artist Ultimate (ARTULT). These remain in the line, and pretty much define the state of the Hamer art! Curiously enough, most have held their own very well in the used in vintage markets in terms of value, a tribute to their intrinsic quality and the heart that the Hamer folks put into their products. Cherry Burst on figured Maple veneer results in a visually inspiring instrument. $250. Circa 1970, Dantzig was playing bass in a club band called Heartbreaker. ), a triple-coil pickup, hand-delivered to Easton just before the Cars played on an episode of Saturday Night Live. Easton took the guitar from Dantzig and went onstage with it! In any case, the Rick Nielsen Limited Edition was its take on this venerable classic, with the lower bout as wide as an Explorer, but the waists very narrow (and consequently thinner treble horn), yielding a very dramatic presentation. By 1930, and already known as a banjo maker, Epiphone was offering its Masterbilt guitars, and it went on to rival Gibson as the top jazz guitar maker of the era with its Emperor and other archtop models. Other out there models included various doublenecks, a Standard-shaped mandocello (mandocello scale with double strings tuned in fifths), a mandar (Standard-shaped with four pairs of strings tuned as a mandolin, but in a guitar scale), and at least one 20-string harp guitar (six-string neck with seven tunable sympathetic strings on either side). How do you date a Hamer guitar? - Guitar Reviewed Very simple to spot differences. Hamer Guitars - Date Your Hamer - Ed Roman Guitars CruiseBass Hamer then began concentrating on a core of high-quality designs targeted at the high-end and collector market. I doubt it's a neck-through. By late 98 the logo treatment on the Indonesian Slammers changed to a more contemporary italic typeface. He liked to shake hands, Dantzig explains. The earliest Sunbursts had a noticeably longer headstock. 1975-85 DiMarzio X2N (with or without active preamp) But in 81, Hamer took its first tentative steps toward creating original designs and introduced the Prototype, not to be confused with the Les Paul-style guitar with that name offered by Aria Pro II at the time. Jethro Tull Ian Anderson Standard, Sunburst The Explorer That Got Awayand Inspired Hamer Guitars Listed: a year ago Views: 452 Watchers: 28 All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. The Daytona, Mirage and T-51 have either Wilkinson VSV vibratos or HT100 stoptails. The neck is carved from the same choice mahogany and is reinforced with a carbon steel trussrod that is fully adjustable. It has a few chips around the tremolo cutout. Authorized Dealer Locator | Fender $99.99 shipping. Mesa, AZ. Only a 3 way tangle and 1 volume and 1 tone control. Not resting on its laurels, yet two more new Hamer models debuted in 94 the Eclipse and the Mirage. The founders may not have quite gotten it, but Hamer guitars sure didnt turn out to be a mistake. Glad all worked out for you. Circa 1980, the 8-String Bass acquired a figured maple top and back, and by 81 these featured an onboard active preamp with an LED indicator and three-way tone switch. This first version of the Special lasted until 84. The pickguard was laminated pearloid. The Standard Bass was offered until 84. Hey guys, I've finally been able to research the guitar to be a Hamer Stellar 1 made in Korea. The Phantom I would appreciate anyones comments or info about it,Thanks All,Tele. This page is to help you identify the year of any Hamer. In 1977 the company set up shop in Palatine, Illinois and employed seven workers. The first Hamer guitar made (in 73) was a short-scale Flying V bass built for Dantzig. Thats how he ended up with #0000, which he still has, recalls Dantzig. Fender instruments made after the CBS takeover in 65 had gotten a bad rap from guitarists by the end of the 60s, based in part on some quality control problems and the infamous three-bolt neck controversy (Fender engineers felt four bolts were overkill and they could save money without sacrificing stability; players didnt see it that way). The Special also carried the special-wound Hamer/DiMarzio PAF humbuckers. The company's early instruments featured guitar designs based on the Gibson Explorer (The Standard) and Gibson Flying V . This was essentially the same as the 12-String Bass except it had only one course of octave strings above the principal string and, of course, four fewer tuners. Dantzig controlled 60 percent of the stock, the rest was split between Hamer and Untermeyer. 1977. Through the small community of guitar traders, I had made the acquaintance Chicagoan Jim Beach, owner of Wooden Music on Lincoln Avenue on the city's North Side. The Rolling Stones Keith Richards Standard Relatively few were used, mainly on 83 Phantom A5 and Blitz guitars, after which the fashion for locking vibrato systems supplanted the Sustain-block vibrato. cond. Dantzig and Hamer were well-matched in those early days. Please Note: For product service outside the U.S. and Canada, please contact either the Dealer from whom you purchased the product, or the Authorized Gretsch Distributor in your area for information and assistance. However, PAFs were designed for jazz players in the 50s. This did not really make good business sense. Untermeyer was initially interested in joining the enterprise as its international sales manager, but he had some money and was convinced to become a partner. Otherwise it was similar to the f-holed Artist with one exception it was finished entirely in silver sparkle. Hamer made some great guitars with sometimes dubious choices in pickups and finishes. The Ramones Johnny Ramone Sunbursts (2) Questioned why the truss rod cover said "Sunburst", they didn't know so I bargained on the price and got it for $175 with a free PRS gig bag. Hamers second model was the Standard Bass. Finishes included 59 Burst, Honey, Kool Blue, Red Transparent and Tobacco Sunburst. With limited orders coming in, existence was tough. Finish was a brownish-red called Cognac. Rockpile Billy Bremner Sunburst Vintage Guitars for Sale: hamer #12. Free shipping. Pickups were original Gibson PAFs. High-end or budget, theres no doubt Hamer Guitars have been successful and earned the allegiance of players and collectors alike. The Hamer Sunburst guitar debuted in 1977 with a retail price of $699, about the same . focused and a Transparent Black on figured Maple veneer results in a visually inspiring Paradise Derek St. Holmes Standard The Phantom GT followed the more traditional design of a superstrat double cutaway guitar, equipped with EMG pickups. Cruising Again, any kind of pickup may have been ordered by the original customer. Not only were the highly figured maple top, soundhole, ebony fingerboard and headstock bound, the body binding included mother-of-pearl. Prior to that point production had been one-off custom variations on the original "Standard" and "Flying V" guitars. . These had much narrower waists than the typical Explorer, plus an asymmetrical split-V headstock (kind of a lopsided version of a Dean head), as opposed to the scimitar. There were two primary differences; first the Artist Archtop was a semi-hollowbody with a sound chamber and f-hole, and the second was in pickups, which were Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers. An Eclipse 12-String was also available with the same specs. 2023 Hamer Guitars | Hamer Guitars is a division of JAM USA LLC. After all, a late-50s Les Paul was just a little more than 10 years old.. Find great deals and sell your items for free. Upgraded with a solid Maple top on Mahogany body, the tone is beefy yet The board was adorned with pearl crown inlays. From 86 to 88 some came with German OBL pickups, including HB types. Recently, the CruiseBass began to offer an option 2-Tek bridge. The rosewood fingerboard was now 22 frets (34 scale), still with pearl dot inlays. Hamer Guitars 'da BOMB ! Technically speaking, Dantzigs 73 Flying V bass was the first Hamer, the model never went into production. Paul Hamer, the company's president, and chief salesperson, left in 1987 to pursue a career in retail. The pickups are Duncan "designed" but they seemed pretty good. Hamer lives in Chicago, where he operates a retail framing business. 12-string bridges were originally a Hamer design, which allowed individual intonation of each string. As with most other features, Hamer will install any bridge, so if you find something not described here, that doesnt mean it has been modified. All rights Basically, Dantzig and Hamer considered most 60s guitars a joke. By 1996, Hamer had begun to modify its import strategy and made a transition for its Ko-rean models which would end up being called the Import Series - basically upscale copies of its better Hamer USA guitars, still made in Korea. This was a spectacular guitar, substantially the same as the carved-top Artist but with some extra-fancy features. In a way, the Prototype was a fusion of Gibson and Fender ideas. $500 $600. Single Cut LP Style $599.00 $40.00 shipping or Best Offer 30 watching 82 most came with passive DiMarzio P and J-type, with exposed polepieces. Guitar #8 0196 would be from 1978 and was the 196th guitar numbered that way. It differed from the Sunburst mainly in that it lacked binding. In 1997 Kaman Music relocated Hamer to a small shop in New Hartford, Connecticut, home of Ovation Guitars. Hamer began publicizing its instruments in 1974, with small black-and-white ads in guitar magazines. It was available in two versions the Custom (Model GTSC) and Standard (Model GTSS). Hamer USA Phantom Cherry Sunburst Flame Top Guitar & Case $2,499 Used - Excellent Add to Cart Vox Phantom VI 1966 Black w/Vox Case $2,350 $100 price drop $2,250 Used - Very Good Add to Cart Warlock Phantom - Solid-body Mahogany Electric Guitar in Vintage White $1,450 $300 price drop $1,150 Brand New Free Shipping 14-Day Return Policy Add to Cart Kaman Music was then approached to handle sales, while the remaining owners concentrated on manufacturing. The Vector was a Flying V copy with a glued-in neck, tapered Hamer three-and-three head, unbound 22-fret rosewood fingerboard, and dot inlays. Electric Guitars Solid Body Hamer Gear I Don't Need Anymore Elgin, IL, United States Hamer archtop - Korean made Used - Very Good $395 + $75 Shipping This piece of gear has sold View similar gear from other sellers on Reverb View similar gear Watch Watch this gear and we'll notify you if it becomes available again. Hamer display at Ed Roman Guitars HAMER VIRTUOSO 36 Frets, Very Rare Model, Ed Roman usually has one available No Longer Being Built High Quality Replica's Available From Abstract Guitars The Abstract Replicas Are Only Available On Discontinued Hamer Models We Have Done Our Best To Recreate These Guitars With As Many Improvements as Possible. So did their friend (and occasional jam partner) Rick Nielsen, of Cheap Trick (VG, January 92, September 97). The irony was that to everyone else, we were this upstart company selling guitars for twice the amount of the most expensive Gibsons at the time! It would stay at this site until early 80, when it moved to a new 12,000-square-foot facility in Arlington Heights, where it remained until 97. Roy Buchanan Roy Buchanan Standards (2) Nevertheless, Dantzig and Hamer continued to play with their new creations and got the attention of more and more curious musicians.
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