2006 Hagstrom Viking Semi-Hollowbody

Description

Reissue of the famed Viking, originally made in Germany from ’65 thru the late 70’s.  It was a quality instrument and fairly popular among European pro artists but it was our own Elvis Presley who gave it greater notoriety, playing a Viking during his ’68 “Comeback Special” televised worldwide on NBC.  While I’ve never had an original Viking, I must say that I’m impressed with this reissue, primarily its ability to play virtually any style of music.  It sounds excellent playing clean jazz or chicken pickin‘, harder-edged jazz/fusion, or even very high gain rock.  I played my modeling amp with one of the Boogie Rectifier settings, which is very high gain, and not a hint of feedback while retaining good note definition.  The Viking is arched semi-hollow maple body with a resonant, loud acoustic tone.  Pickups are Hagstrom’s HJ-50 humbuckers with the standard 3-way and dual volume/tone controls.  It has Hagstrom’s patented H-Expander truss rod which provides tension at either end and runs the entire length of the neck.  The rigid yet lightweight alloy truss rod allows for very low action and a thin set maple neck.  Other features include maple body with Canadian maple set neck, “Resinator” fretboard with 6mm dot markers, 15″ fretboard radius, 18:1 Hagstrom tuners with Imperial style tuner buttons, 24.75″ scale, GraphTech black Tusq XL nut, long travel tuneomatic bridge with Hagstrom Trapeze Tail Piece, complete with coat of arms emblem, and thin fast neck.   The Hagstrom standard lists at $1099 and sells new for $799 *without* a case or gigbag.  Why not consider this barely played beauty for just $550 – or add a quality  Hagstrom hardshell case (salt/pepper tweed) for $639.