Info on Japanese Hohner jazzbox?

[joannajetson]

Does anyone know anything or have any literature on a Hohner HG-810 jazzbox from the late 70s - early 80s? (mine has a 1982 date code). The only thing I've found on the web is one photo, here :

http://www.robwesley.com/guitars/Hohner ... nburst.jpg

(Sorry, I'm not having any luck getting the complete hyperlink to work, so you'll have to cut-and-paste the address.)

Mine is exactly like his. The body is the same shape as the Ibanez GB and just a touch smaller - 14-1/2 wide, 2-3/4 deep, 24-3/4 scale. Solid curly maple back and sides, spruce top. The top is also exactly like the Vesta Graham on the Vintaxe site, right down to the wierd over-the-top f-holes.

The only thing Hohner was able to confirm was the model number and that it was made in Japan. From what I've been able to dig up on the Japanese Hohners, it probably came from the Terada factory.

I've looked at the Hohner catalogs on Vintaxe, but unfortunately, it falls between the years that are online.

So, if anyone has any additional info, catalog pages, etc., I'd love to find out more about it. It's quite a nice guitar, especially since I installed a Shadow Zoller pickup at the neck.

Thanks, all -
Joanna

[VintAxe]

Hi Joanna.

Sorry you didn't find your Hohner Jazzbox in the catalogs. I probably have more Hohner catalogs in my unsorted bins. I'll do some sorting next week and see if I can find a catalog with your guitar pictured.

Where did you read about the Hohner - Terada connection? I haven't turned up anything on a search.

[joannajetson]

Hi,

Thanks very much for looking to see if you have other Hohner catalogs. If I'm reading the date code correctly, mine is a 1982.

I may be wrong about the Terada connection due to my faulty aging memory - I had been thinking of an old Polytone jazzbox I had decades ago and was pretty certain that the body was the same as my Hohner's, and I had found refernces to the Polytones being built by Terada. However, looking at the Polytone catalogs on vintaxe, I see they're not quite the same after all.

Now, my Hohner does have the same body as the Vesta Graham shown on the site - which would be Vestax/Shino (one of the several builders of the D'Angelico knock-offs). Then the questions become: 1) did Vestax/Shino have their own factory back in the late '70s - early '80s, and if not, what factory did they use, and 2) does the identical body necessarily mean they were built in the same place, or would one factory have "borrowed" the design? I mean, those f-holes are really pretty weird, so it's hard for me to picture another factory voluntarily doing a knock-off!

Another confusion is that except for the f-holes, the top of the Hohner body matches the Ibanez GB, and it's my understanding that the Ibanez hollow-bodies of that era were made by Terada...

Oh,and naturally, most of the label inside the guitar is missing, and although there are 2 numerical stamps inside (I'm guessing one is a serial no. and one is a date code), there's no alphabetical prefix on either one, as there is on the Ibanez models.

In other words - AARGHH!

[hansmoust]

Hello joannajetson,

A good number of the Hohner models from that period were also sold under the Morris brand, often with slight differences in the trimmings.

Here's a partly scan of the Morris catalog from that same period:



Obviously a different headstock shape, different bridge & tailpiece and different placement of the knobs but definitely the same manufacturer.



Since your guitar has a spruce top it looks like it is a mix of the two pictured Morris models.

Hope this is of some help!

Sincerely,

Hans Moust
www.guitarsgalore.nl

[joannajetson]

Thank you, Hans - I appreciate the info and the scan!

Joanna

[Bassassin]

Japanese Hohners - 70s & early 80s - were sourced from , who it's assumed were an acoustic manufacturer which jumped on the copy bandwagon in the 70s. Their own house-brand is Morris.

The only connection between Morris & Terada I've read about appears in the list of Japanese brands & manufacturers which is stickied at the top of this board - much of which I can't help feeling is based on guesswork!

However I've recently seen a Morris acoustic which named Iida Gakki as manufacturer on the inside label - this suggests that either Moridaira outsourced some production, or perhaps even that they did not have their own production facility. Again the lack of information & records from the era leaves us with little more than educated guesses!

Jon.

[joannajetson]

Hi, Jon -

Thanks for the confirmation about Hohners being sourced from Mordaira/Morris. I've sent Morris USA an email asking for any info - who knows if I'll hear back?

I got the info on the connection regarding Terada building guitars for Morris and Vesta from this site:

http://www.music-trade.co.jp/otherhistory2.html

which seems to have a lot of information about connections between many Japanese brands. From what I've found on a number of sites, it looks like many of the brands used different factories for their acoustics and their electrics, confusing things even more...!

Joanna

[VintAxe]

You are certainly right Jon, there is no shortage of conjecture in the brand name list I have posted as a sticky. However, I thought the list was close enough for peer review of the information in an effort to make the list more accurate. As you know, one person's opinion posted on the net can be picked up and repeated by others until an unsuspecting consumer believes it is true. It is my hope the list will be scrutinized by knowledgeable people and refined over time so that it becomes a closer approximation of the truth.

BTW, did you have an opinion on the Eagle double neck discussed in this post:

[Bassassin]