By the time this beast was history, so pretty much was the classic celluloid image of Texas, replaced by the post-modern cynicism actually introduced by those Spaghetti productions. It’s not clear how long this model was offered by Hondo, but probably only a year or so. The active 12-hex-pole pickups were powered by an onboard preamp that let you kick this puppy into overdrive at the flick of a switch. This is actually a swell guitar with a mahogany body and 31-fret fingerboard. Which brings us to this Hondo II Longhorn, which was introduced in 1978. To be honest, the Korean Hondos weren’t all that great, but Hondo kept working with Tokai, and some of its deluxe models continued to be made in Japan. Lyre guitars continued to show up in the hands of cute babes on postcards up until World War I after which they slipped from memory, until Nate Daniel brought them back in the late 1960s. Indeed, they may have been responsible for the invention of harp guitars, but that’s just a guess. By the mid-1800s guitars with lyre arms began to appear. The shape was actually rediscovered in the late 18th and early 19th as Europeans became interested in unearthing ancient cultures. The lyre continued to be popular at least through the flowering of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations and may have survived in one form or another into the early Middle Ages. Since some of the harps (a related instrument) that have survived from that time were outfitted with elaborately decorated bull’s heads, it is entirely possible that the lyre’s shape was also meant to bring steer horns to mind! Lyres were in use in Mesopotamia-a region we know today as Iraq-at least by 2500 BC and probably earlier. Technically speaking, this two-horned body is the shape of a lyre. But in fact, associating the Longhorn guitar with cattle (though perhaps not cowboys) has a basis in ancient history. Calling this guitar a Longhorn is obvious because the cutaway horns are, well, long.

Hondo 2 guitar serial numbers