SOLD! - 1986 Hohner The Prinz Mad Cat Telecaster Prince

Every fan knows that Prince’s favorite guitar is a telecaster. From the beginning of his career to his latest concerts, you can always see him play this flamed maple tele with maple neck and matching leopard print strap.

In the 70’s, Prince (not being famous yet) bought a Hohner telecaster. There are rumors that he bought this guitar since the pickguard matched perfectly with the leopard strap he already had but I guess there were more reasons:

- The looks are fantastic, beautiful book matched flamed maple front and back
- The build quality at the time was excellent
- The guitar body is made from maple (rarely used by builders) which gives it a very distinct, bright, funky (!!!) sound
- There's something about the brand Hohner... Originally a German brand specialized in harmonica’s, they also decided to move into the lucrative guitar business in the 1970's buying guitars from Japanese factories and rebranding them.

During the NAMM show in 1972, a telecaster was shown by a brand called H.S. Anderson named the "Madcat". The brand name is just a name made up (although there is an American woodsculpturer known by this name) but the guitar really excelled in build quality, playability and sound.

After the H.S. Anderson Madcat Tele became a success, Hohner decided to buy the brand name and put their logo on it. Due to lawsuit issues (the headstock of the Madcat was an exact copy of the Fender headstock), the guitar was taken out of production after a short while.

Luckily, one of these rare Madcats ended up in a music shop in Minneapolis, Prince noticed it for sale and the rest is history.

After Prince became a superstar in the 80’s, Hohner decided to bring this guitar back into production and they called it "The Prinz". But due to legal issues (again) as the headstock looked all to familiar to the Fender Telecaster, Hohner brought out a third version called "TE Prinz" with a different headstock.

This is your chance to get one of these rare guitars, an all original very early '86 first reissue Hohner The Prinz Telecaster with Fender Telecaster style headstock!! (It is the earliest 1986 stickered serial number version, although someone has scratched the serial number underneath the sticker as to not lose the number... The sticked seems to fade or gets lost over time)

The sale also includes the leopard Fender strap, 80's rectangular case and the framed printed Prince Madcat advert, all as pictured