1961 Hofner Verithin Hollowbody Electric Guitar

This Hofner Verithin is the only version sporting all of its features that we've seen. It has the cool, early, single-cut body. It has the Bigsby. It has the ABR-style bridge. It has the cool fretboard markers. It has the music note headstock veneer. Also, most importantly, it's featherweight (just under 5 lbs) and super thin in depth which makes it simply fun as heck to play, hold, and use.

Tonewise, it reminds me of playing Gibsons with mini-humbuckers and it makes a great jazzbox, for sure, but will also do Gretschy sounds and rockabilly sounds, too. Some work was required to get it playing its best, but now that it does, it's just joy to play it.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, pickup housing modifications, bridge fussing/tweaking to keep it from rattling, some tuner adjustments, replacement truss cover (the headstock veneer is a little damaged under it and so we extended the truss slot to allow adjustment with normal tools), cleaning, and setup. The owner had someone rewire it, too, so the controls on the plate are a little different -- each knob is a volume control for either pickup. Two slider switches control on/off for each pickup. The third slider switch engages a tone-dampening capacitor. That's what it sounds like, anyhow!

• Weight: 4 lbs 15 oz
• Scale length: 25 1/4"
• Nut width: 1 5/8
• Neck shape: medium C
• Board radius: 9 1/2"
• Body width: 16 1/8"
• Body depth: 1 1/8" (!!!)
• Body wood: maple ply, spruce ply top
• Bridge: ABR-like
• Fretboard: rosewood
• Neck wood: maple
• Pickups: 2x humbucker
• Action height at 12th fret: 1/16” overall (fast, spot-on)
• String gauges: 46w-10
• Truss rod: adjustable
• Neck relief: straight
• Fret style: medium-narrow

Condition notes: it's all-original as far as I can tell, barring a few replacement screws and the wiring harness. We had to modify the bridge pickup housing to get the pickup lower on the body so it's cut-down a bit and has replacement mounting screws. There's wear and tear throughout the body and the celluloid binding has cracked all over the body's edges but all of it is in place and holding pat. It looks like the neck was refretted at some point in the past and the zero fret in particular was pretty bad so Ancel swapped it to a stainless fret which should make its use (as the nut) very practical (as stainless is so durable). The truss rod cover is not original and hides both a damaged section of headstock veneer and an excavated truss rod cut-out so one can get normal tools on the end of the rod.

It comes with: a nice hard case.

Consignor tag: SSC