1964 Hofner 173 Vintage Electric Guitar Red Croc Selmer Super 3 w/ 510 Pickups

Up for sale, a 1964 Hofner model 173 in excellent condition and in good working order.  Only produced with the rare red crocodile vinyl covering from 1963-64 and sporting a trio of early 510 single coils with diamond nickel covers, this high end UK made model sounds fantastic and has a great range of tones. From honky twang in the bridge position to full, low end and growl at the neck, these pickups sound fantastic and are one of the earliest iterations of this design!  Professionally setup here at our shop, the action on this Hofner is low and slinky with fresh 10-46 strings.
The neck has a fairly generous C profile with nice full shoulders and a slab Brazilian rosewood fretboard. The stock fretwire is in great shape, with its full original height and well rounded crowns, showing only light wear mostly in the first position beneath the B and G strings.  The guitar plays well up the fretboard with no buzzing or dead spots and solid intonation. The headstock sports a set of modern, sealed back tuners which turn well and do a decent job of keeping everything in tune.  The original "Hofner" waterslide decal is intact and clean on the face of the headstock and the entire neck shows gorgeous, light finish checking.
All of the electronics work as they should, with the neck and middle pickup having just been rewound to original spec by Sonny's Custom Shop.  Sonny is extremely exacting in his work and made sure that the correct wire and techniques were used to bring the two pickups back to stock and have them balance out well with the bridge pickup (which retains its original windings).  The configuration of the electronics is very unique, in that the guitar has one master Volume control and individual Tone knobs for each pickup, which all work in reverse of a conventional instrument, with the most bass when they're turned all the way up and plenty of treble cut as you roll them back.  The four-way pickup selector toggle is also a very cool piece of hardware, with the selections on the slider rotating in a circular fashion.  The original knobs are intact and the bridge has been upgraded with a modern Tune-O-Matic style with nylon saddles, which makes the vibrato action much smoother.  Designed in a similar fashion to the Fender Jazzmaster/Jaguar vibrato, the original vibrato unit on this guitar responds very quickly, flutters easily and jumps back to the original pitch well.
Under the pickguard, there is some routing for a different pickup compliment (photo #16), but the original black metal pickguard and electronics were left untouched when these mods were done, and the entire electronics assembly has been reinstalled to bring the guitar back to stock.  The pots and rotary selector switch are original, along with all of the wiring. Cosmetically, the guitar's overall condition is quite good, with some light peeling back and loosening of the red croc vinyl around the horns on the body and two tiny, pin sized holes on the bass side of the body, north of the pickguard (so tiny they can barely be seen in photos).  There is also a small chip out of the volume knob and the white rubber piping on the body is pulled tight at the waist on the treble side, separating slightly from the curve of the body.
A gigbag is included.