Hofner New President

**Guillaume84** · 06-02-2022, 12:12 PM

Hello everybody,

I've been dreaming of a jazzbox for a long time and, well, yesterday, my wife (Oh God I love her do !) went to one of our local store and...bought me this gorgeous Höfner New President !!

I can't resist sharing some pictures of it with you.
It sounds absolutely killer, very versatile, and I can even play gypsy swing with it.

However, I have a question : can someone help to me to determinate the date of this guitar. Im an avid reader of this forum and I know many of you are true experts on this kind of subject ;-)

Serial is A07251 and there's also a signature : Hubert Claa (?)

Thank you so much,

Cheers from France,

Guillaume

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170331-jpg

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170331-jpg

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170338-jpg

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170407-jpg

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170425-jpg

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170432-jpg

Hofner New President-img_20220602_170614-jpg

**JSanta** · 06-02-2022, 02:53 PM

Paging Hammertone, our resident Hofner expert!

EDIT: I should have also added that the guitar looks spectacular, congrats on your new Hofner!

**2bornot2bop** · 06-02-2022, 03:32 PM

Beautiful guitar! Congratulations Guillaume!

**bluenote61** · 06-02-2022, 04:30 PM

Nice guitar!
AFAIK the New President was introduced approx. 1998.
In 2000 the serials were reorganized and got a letter as prefix, starting with A for 2000.
If your guitar has no letter in the serial no., I suppose it was made before 2000.
Hence, the guitar could have been built somewhere between 1998 and 2000.

And, the guitar was checked and tested by Hubert Kaa, one of the leading luthiers at Hofner.

If you want to be shure about the year of built, you might contact Hofner directly.

**Guillaume84** · 06-02-2022, 04:44 PM

Thank you so much for your answer.
In fact I forgot to mention the ''A'' in the serial ! I've just edited my original post to add it.
This would indicate mine's from 2000. That's cool

; it's older than I thought.

**hotpepper01** · 06-02-2022, 05:24 PM

Man, that is awesome. She is Stellar, and the guitar is as well. Who cares about the date when it was produced. It looks like allmost brandnew as if it was produced yesterday. She (your wife) really loves you and to my eyes that is worth way more than the most expensive or any guitar.

**tramline** · 06-02-2022, 06:53 PM

Welcome to the club of owners of these wonderful instruments! If you know, you know.

**BigDaddyLoveHandles** · 06-02-2022, 10:22 PM

She's a beauty!

Just remember, blondes prefer gentlemen.

**RJVB** · 06-03-2022, 07:18 AM

Well, at least one Frenchman got a new president!

Congrats!

But, 16 frets to the body, that's "way out there"!

**citizenk74** · 06-03-2022, 04:10 PM

Wonderful instrument, great story. Congratulations, and play it in good health!

**citizenk74** · 06-03-2022, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by tramline

Welcome to the club of owners of these wonderful instruments! If you know, you know.

**skykomishone** · 06-03-2022, 10:01 PM

That's' a real beauty! Congratulations on the NGD!

**medblues** · 06-04-2022, 06:48 AM

NGD congratulations! The New President has both a nice acoustic sound and a well-respected pickup. It was my first carved-top archtop guitar. When I want the "acoustic archtop sound", it's what I play.

**Doktah B** · 06-05-2022, 08:49 AM

Oh my gosh, I was looking at the close up pictures thinking to myself how battered it looked.
as I scrolled down I realised it was my screen covered in crap, so a little polish later and I am extremely envious/jealous (I am never quite sure which is the good and which is the bad version, my sentiments are of the positive kind).
Lovely bit of kit indeed. and its a Hof too. I am so loving what they do, even my cheep Chinese one is an absolute doozy. Congratulations on being married to someone with great taste, the nicest gift I ever got was a pound of lambs liver, and that really wasn't tasty or tasteful at all!

**ninjasan** · 06-08-2022, 02:01 AM

Salut Guillaume,

Congrats for your new "New President", very beautiful guitar!

Becare of the humidifier included in the case, mine happened to loose itself and did a few marks in the cutaway finish.
I ended up with removing it.

Cheers from Hautes Alpes ;-)
Christophe

**Guillaume84** · 06-08-2022, 02:12 AM

Hello everybody,

Thank you so much, to all of you, for your awesome comments on my new guitar. After a week, Im still amazed by its beauty and the richness of its sound. I've never experienced that in the past.

I'll follow your advice Christophe even if there's no humidifier in my case. There's a varnish crack in the cutaway too on mine, at the neck/body junction. But nothing I'm gonna worry about : the sound is perfect and the guitar stays perfectly in tune. Im sure it's only cosmetic. But it's true we have to take great care of those archtop if we wand to see them aged well.

**Hammertone** · 06-08-2022, 02:25 AM

Congrats on the new guitar! I've been away for a few days, working at the Hofner booth at this year's NAMM show, and was a bit busy to comment earlier. Your guitar appears to be in virtually new condition - pretty amazing for a 22-year-old instrument. It has all of the typical New President features of the time. Enjoy playing it!

**Klatu** · 06-11-2022, 04:38 PM

Hofner has disappeared from the US market once they stopped production of their German models. What are the chances they bring some of them back?

**Hammertone** · 06-11-2022, 11:02 PM

Hofner has gone through some staff changes in 2022, which is probably a good thing. Check out some NAMM 2022 booth pix here:
Namm?
Still banging away with orchestral strings, classicals, Beatle basses and a few other things. As far as archtops go ... I'm working on it!