The earliest Club guitars up to about 1959 were constructed with flat backs. After this time, backs were arched to fall in line with other models. All Club guitars have two small guitar strap fixings comprising a leather strip, folded in two containing a metal D-ring. The position of these is on the heel and on the bottom rim next to the tailpiece fixing.
1958-FEATURES
Headstock
Plain style black background.
HOFNER logo with three vertical dots below decreasing in size, all in MOP.
No binding.
Machineheads
Strip open backed; brass lightly engraved (Hofner CAT NO.61/30 or 61/31).
Plain white/cream knobs.
Brass posts.
Pressed metal bushes.
Steel tuners.
Brass cogs.
Nut
Three ply; B/W/B
Neck
Three piece.
Maple/8m beech/maple.
Rosewood fingerboard with single dot inlays (8 number) double dots (1 number); dots from fret 15 of smaller diameter; all in MOP.
No binding.
Scale-length
635mm
Truss-rod
None
Frets
Nickel plated standard frets.
Top
Laminated maple two piece.
May have Hofner gold decal on upper base bout.
Body
Laminated maple back and rims.
Two layer binding B/W on blonde models; W/B on brunette models.
Dimensions 440 x 330 x 50mm.
F-holes
None
Pickguard
Tortoiseshell ; light or dark coloured ; some may have white edging.
Bridge
Ebony.
Height adjustable.
Compensated with adjustable fret wire inserts.
Tailpiece
Nickel plated trapezium shaped.
Narrow flat bar with six string holes.
Central cross bar connected to flat bar with three vertical rods.
Hofner medallion attached to vertical bars.
Shaped hinged base attached to rim with three pins.
Hofner medallion not present on some guitars. The tailpieces not having the medallion are somewhat smaller in height.
1959-FEATURES
Headstock
Sometime during 1959 the headstock was altered to a plain style.
Accentuated curved sides.
Splayed top corners.
Black background with vertical HOFNER logo in shaped enclosure; arrowhead feature below, all in single gold line.
No binding.
1960-FEATURES
All as detailed for 1958 but having the following variations.
Headstock
New wide style as employed on Senator and Congress guitars.
Black background.
HOFNER logo.
Treble and Bass clefs with musical staff.
The words "DISTRIBUTED BY SELMER LONDON, FOREIGN" all in single line gold (N.B. words not always present).
Machineheads
Models for this year have nickel plated lightly engraved backplates.
Truss-rod
First time introduced.
Two layer bell shaped cover B/W, fixed with three screws.
1961/1962-FEATURES
The Club 40 remained unchanged for this period with of course the exception of the electric’s.
1957/1958-FEATURES
The Club 50 is similar in every respect to the Club 40 for this year but boasts an extra pick-up at the bridge.
1959-FEATURES
Once again the model 50 follows the same format as the 40 for this year.
Headstock
One slight variation I have observed on 50s for this year is that some guitars have a more gradual angle to the splayed corners.
1960/1961-FEATURES
All as for 40 for this period. New wide style headstock introduced.
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