Hopf Saturn 63

This is a Hopf Saturn 63 made in Germany. In 1986 I bought most of the stock from a music store that was closing. In the piles and piles of "stuff" there was an ODD shaped case with a flower decal on it, with the letters L-O-V-E stuck on the petals.

I knew right then I had to have whatever was inside this case. Inside was one of the weirdest guitars I had ever seen, half apart. After some whining, stamping my feet, and overall groveling I got it for $50. Over the next few months I replaced the garbage tuners with Grovers and also shaved the neck down to a more comfortable profile. The output jack is a weird 4 pin thing and I didn't really want to replace it so I made a short adaptor cable for it. This is truly an oddball. Most people who see it think it's disgusting but I usually get them to try it, at which point they find out it plays and sounds great! It definitely has a Gretschy sound and sometimes sounds even more like a Gretsch than a Gretsch! A friend of mine, Helmuth Lemme in Munich, was in the process of writing a book about German electric guitars at the time and he asked me to take some B&W photos of it against a neutral background with all the tuners aligned so he could use it in his book as he couldn't find one to take a photo of. I procrastinated and missed my chance. Now every time I pick up his book I feel like smacking myself. That could have been MY guitar on page 94! A Hofner Committee I used to own ended up on the cover, so that's some consolation......

Now as to the uh.... "addition" on the back of the body... um... there's NO explanation, I just thought it would look good.

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