Hofner Congress 1957 Hollow Body, all Vintage and Original

This is a 1957 Hofner Congress. This is a stunning looking, vintage guitar. The guitar has the serial number 4853 which dates is to 1957 (Serial number range 4718 - 5808).

The guitar is a fully hollow archtop that has been retrofitted with pickups. I believe these were a factory add on option. The pickups currently do not work properly, this is probably down to a simple wiring issue but I don't have the patience for re-writing hollow body guitars myself.

The guitar also comes with an old hard case, which I believe is the original hard shell case from the factory.

The guitar plays great and has a really chunky neck. The necks on the late 50s Hofners were pretty substantial because it was in the brands "pre truss rod" era, so the neck had extra mass to compensate for the string tension.

The guitar has a crack on the neck heel which I've had checked by a luthier and they have confirmed this is just a superficial crack to the paintwork. The neck heel on these Hofner's were in 2 pieces and the string tension causes the wood to stretch, in turn cracking the paint (Much like neck pocket cracks on a Strat).

Due to the age, the guitar has plenty of mojo and plenty of wear as you'd expect from a guitar of it's age.