GUITARS AND BASSES OF HAMER U.S.A. 1975 -2008
The guitars and basses described in these pages are those which havebeen produced by Hamer U.S.A. since 1974 and up to the present date. Obviously Hamer also made many one-of-a-kind custom instruments; the hardwareand style of production instruments may be different on SpecialOrder instruments. It also does not include specially ordered instruments that were not generally available. Therefore thelist is not exhaustive. The dates are also approximate due to the reasons given above and several models may not appear in catalogues. It should be remembered that Hamer builtinstruments to order, so many models were still technically available after they had been deleted from the official catalogue.
Some pictures are shown in the text, but most can be found by following the links to other pages.
A Note on Hamer Serial Numbers
Hamer Blitz Bass. Blitz Guitar (1st version) (1982 - 1984) - Explorer style body, 3-a-side peghead, dot inlays and 22 frets on a 24.75 inch scale length. Fitted with two humbuckers (Hamer Slammers) and a choice of Sustain Block tremolo or Sustain Block fixed bridge. Later guitars (late 1983 onwards) often have locking Kahler Flat Mount trem. Serial numbers on Hamer CH-12’s Regardless of whether they were built in South Korea, Indonesia or China, all imported Hamer Chaparral 12-string basses have 7-digit serial numbers. The serial number and country of origin are printed onto a sticker or decal rather than being stamped into the wood.
In 1974 Hamer used a four digit number stamped into the wood startingwith guitar #0000 and, until the launch of the Sunburst, this system wasused on all guitars. Some instruments (notably Standard guitarsand basses, Eight-string basses and some custom order instruments) were numbered using the four digit numberingsystem up until 1985(e.g Standard #0722 was completed in May 1984); in total about 750 instrumentswere numbered using these four digit numbers.
Hamer Slammer Guitar Serial Numbers
The Sunbursts were numbered using a different system: the first digit represents the year of production and the following four(or later five digit number) is the total number of guitars made by Hamerand numbered using this system. So for example guitar #8 0196 was madein 1978 and was the 196th guitar to be numbered using this system. Similarly# 8 21416 was made in 1988 and was the 21416th guitar to be numbered. Thesenumbers are printed using ink or paint (black on most but yellow on blackand dark coloured instruments). By 1980 most models with the exceptions noted above were numberedusing this latter system. From late 1987 the serial numberswere stamped into the wood rather than printed. Recently, USA has been stamped under the serial number in the same font.
Hamer Serial Number Database
Just to complicate matters,many one-of-a-kind and prototype instruments have numbers that do not relateto either of the above systems.