leroybasslines Posted July 18, 2018 Share Posted July 18, 2018 Hello! A friend of mine works for a charity that teaches music in prisons and supports ex-prisoners after release. They occasionally get gear donated to them from benefactors, some of it very useable, some of it interesting but less suited to their needs. They’ve been donated this lovely Hofner 500/5 bit it’s probably too fragile and unusual for learning rock sings in prison etc. It looks great but it’s seen better days and looks to have undergone some pretty serious surgery on the neck heel. My mate generally comes to me for bass advice but, whilst I’m very much at home in Fender Land, I admit I’ve no idea about Hofner, semi-acoustics and the like. It looks reasonably old, but it seems to my uneducated eye that Hofners look old when they leave the factory! All I know is that these are the model Stuart Sutcliffe in the Beatles before he left. There’s a label inside the body behind the F hole that has this written on it: ”Hofner foreign. No. 706 BASS 500/5 Model This master class guitar is covered by the guarantee supplied” Other than that, no markings or numbers anywhere else - I’m loathe to start pulling the electronics out on a bass that’s not mine but I can if it’ll help find out more. It plays well but has a few dings and scratches - the neck surgery scars being the most worrisome. Yes, I know it’s got the wrong scale length strings on it! My mate assumed it was short scale, but it’s a bit bigger than that Anyone got any idea of age, desirability, value etc. If it’s worth something it’ll be better for the charity to sell it and invest in stuff that is more robust and straight forward for beginners, if you know what I mean. Any wisdom, information or pointers would be most gratefully received! Thanks, Liam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leroybasslines Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 So, with the help of our fellow basschatter Burns-bass and some stuff on vintagehofner.co.uk, I’m guessing this is a 1960 Hofner 500/5. Most of it looks original too. The neck repair is probably to treat a fairly common problem and it will need attention again to tidy it up and make sure it’s good. Any other Hofner buffs out there that can shed any light on this instrument? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leroybasslines Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 Some close-ups of the neck heel repair... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 (edited) That was donated to a prison charity? Barking mad! That is indeed a 1960-ish Hofner 500/5, the model which (in modified form) eventually became the best-selling Hofner President in the UK. The close-spaced 'toaster' pickups narrow the date range down quite nicely. Your bass looks pretty much all original, although I'm not entirely convinced by the tort pickguard. It also appears to be in really lovely condition and should be worth somewhere into three figures. The neck repair is absolutely typical of the 90s / noughties. Those basses were built using traditional techniques. The set neck was glued in using animal glues rather than modern epoxy and similar. Over the years/decades those animal glues will gradually dry out and turn to dust, at which point the neck will gracefully fold against the body like a well-oiled pen-knife. Any number of well-intentioned but ignorant owners/luthiers tried to fix this by putting a bloody great woodscrew through the neck joint. Cheap as chips and very long-lasting, as long as you got the neck angle at the heel exactly right. The correct solution is, of course, to re-glue the neck using animal glues. After this amount of time (58 years) the original pickups may need re-winding and the original electrics may need re-soldering, though neither of those are inevitable. Given the short scale of that bass (30.5") I have no idea what has been done to have the strings look so weird, unless there's an issue with the tailpiece (not that I can see anything). In terms of what's best for your charity, my recommendation would be to eBay the Hofner and use the funds raised either to buy five decent Squiers or to fund one complete rockband's worth of kit. Edited July 21, 2018 by Happy Jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted July 21, 2018 Share Posted July 21, 2018 Where in the country are you, Liam? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leroybasslines Posted July 21, 2018 Author Share Posted July 21, 2018 (edited) We're in Bristol! Thanks for the info - some really useful stuff! Edited July 21, 2018 by leroybasslines Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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