This is a very important Hofner and so I took a while to consider exactly the best strategy for its restoration.

For example,  it is a very attractive guitar but significantly it is incredibly rare and is historically important.    It has not been used much and it has not been abused either.     It has, however,  had an earlier neck joint repair and a little poor work to the cellulose.      So, with this guitar,  because it carries with it a lot of Hofner history,  I shall just restore it lightly,  leaving it as untouched as possible.    

My programme will be to rectify any past repairs,  remove the overspray,  refurbish where necessary then clean and polish it to its best advantage.    Finally I shall make sure it plays as well as it can.

Generally the whole guitar is in very good condition.

When I had it in my hands I was pleased to confirm that it had generally been well cared for over the years.    It played reasonably well, and had a really nice, mellow tone - full, rich and resonant!    I hadn't expected that.

So, it would all be a question of whether the past repairs had been done well.  

Once I started work on the Pöhlert,  it soon became clear that the repairs were better than I had thought.   The work to the neck (it appeared that the heel block had separated from the neck) was good and strong.    It had simply been refinished rather badly which initially had given the impression of a bad repair.

So, the Pöhlert was actually in pretty good shape.     The restoration would be more to do with rectifying past work,  restoring its good looks,  and making it play nicely!!