Vintage Hofner acoustic guitar

[SnakemanBill]

Is anyone here familiar with these guitars? I was given and old Hofner acoustic with a nice hard case. The guitar is in poor shape the neck is separated from the body. I was wondering if it was worth having repaired or not. From what I've been able to find out its from the mid 60's the number stamped on the back of the headstock is 1403.

 

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[The Buzzard King]

Dang, bout time somebody posted in this area!
In my opinion, Hofners huge claim to fame was their violin shaped bass made famous by Paul Mcartney.
After doing a little research on your guitar, I honestly don't believe that it would be worth the price of a professional repair.
I've been a working musician for over 25 years, and I am constantly with extreme professional luthiers several days per week. 2 of my personal friends do custom-build guitars for many famous musicians.
(Which is fun, cause I get to play famous peoples guitars before they do! )
It appears to me, (after looking around Ebay, and the internet) that your guitar is barely fetching around $200 for the most part.
I know first-hand that a typical headstock crack normally costs a minimum of around $150-$250 depending on how invisible you want the repair to be. And neck-setting work is normally a WAY more involved, and expensive process.
So, It's not really worth it to spend $300-$400 on a $200 guitar.
If your handy, you might wanna just try to fix it yourself.
If you can make it playable again it can't hurt.
I do LOTS of small repairs for people, like broken headstocks, electronics, binding, and fret-jobs, myself. (Mostly on lower value instruments. My good guitars still go to the Pros!)
Is the fretboard lifting up, or is the neck joint seperating from the body?
I would take my chances with a good wood epoxy and a few clamps. (be careful with the clamps!)
Hey, the worse that can happen is you'll have a playable guitar again!

 

[Mark3539]

Bill, if you'll look at the paper label inside the sound hole, you'll see "ANNO", meaning year, and after that, the year the guitar was made. I have a Hofner guitar very similar to that one, which I bought in 1976. The only improvement I made to it was to put a nice set of Grover machine heads on it. The neck is detachable, which you seem to have found out. (Actually, it's an adjustment for raising and lowering string height) so the guitar is probably not really broken. It's just that not too many people have seen one of those l before. I think that Hofner is the only company that makes ones like that.

 

[MickeyMaguire]

Bill, if you'll look at the paper label inside the sound hole, you'll see "ANNO", meaning year, and after that, the year the guitar was made. I have a Hofner guitar very similar to that one, which I bought in 1976. The only improvement I made to it was to put a nice set of Grover machine heads on it. The neck is detachable, which you seem to have found out. (Actually, it's an adjustment for raising and lowering string height) so the guitar is probably not really broken. It's just that not too many people have seen one of those l before. I think that Hofner is the only company that makes ones like that.

Taylor guitars are similar in todays makers. THey use shims to reset proper relief angles and action on their guitars. OP, Hofner was a department store brand, for the most part, until Paul McCartney broke his bass guitar and needed one for the night's gig in Hamberg, Germany. He walked around town and found the Hofner Viola-shaped bass in a small music store window. He bought it... the rest is history. Your guitar would probably need a proper neck set and that might include a neck "hot press" to straighten it. I don't think that model had a truss rod to keep the neck straight. I may be wrong. Their modern guitars do have truss rods. Don't look to make any money of it. Nonetheless, it might be a fun guitar in playable condition.