Well, looking in the window of my local pawnshop I saw a guitar that for some reason caught my eye -- I've had good luck there before so in I went. It was a Hondo II acoustic; that much I could tell from the label, but no other identifying information. Came home and searched the Web and came up with the most excellent VintAxe site (which I hadn't seen before), which clearly ID'd the guitar as a Hondo II H119a . The condition was, let's say, not as good as it might have been, so I got it for next to nothing. It is now in the hands of my instrument repair guy, who is a master (and not just of guitar repair -- actually he's even better with brass instruments). But before I gave it to him I took some "before" pix, and here they are:
It's in not-so-good cosmetic condition: various dings etc., and some of the painted-on (!) binding is coming off. But overall it's in remarkably good physical shape, considering what and how old it is. The neck, headstock, tuners, etc., are fine, and the body is sound. The only problem is that the bridge is pulling up (although to what degree I can't tell), which is why I took it to my repairman -- that's not something I would attempt to fix myself.
What I like about the Hondo: it's wonderfully light, almost feather-weight, which is remarkable for a (smaller) dreadnought. I also like the way the lacquer finish has worn over the years -- you can make out the outline of the person who played it! You can also see the basic first-position chords in the wear pattern in the stain in the (non-rosewood!) fingerboard. And I like knowing the story of the guitar, thanks to VintAxe -- I remember this make from back in the day but I never knew this much about it. There is also a nice posting on Wikipedia about Hondo:
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I think I can pretty much preserve it in all-original state; the tuners seem fine, there is still play in the truss rod, etc.
I'm looking forward to hearing its voice when I get it back. I won't try anything but silk-and-steel on a guitar like this, but that's fine with me -- I like silk-and-steel (comment: I highly recommend La Bella strings, which I think are underrated in the US). As I write this there's one of these listed on Ebay (in better condition) for $235, and the seller claims that it "books for over $500.00" (!!) which is, well, probably a little bit of Ebay hype.
So thanks to VintAxe for getting me motivated to go ahead with this project. I'll let you know how it turns out!
the neck is dead straight, it plays perfectly in tune all the way up the neck, the action is low (a little over 3 mm), and it sounds exactly like something off of an old Simon & Garfunkel record. So all in all, given that my repair guy charged me way less than he should, I'm quite happy with it. The only really bad thing that happened was that a bit of the soundhole decal (!) flaked off when my repair guy polished it! All in all a good project, and I'm very happy with the result.
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