1958 Hohner Gola

[Dingo40]

A brief look at a 1958 Hohner Gola

 

[JerryPH]

I love all Gola accordions... but I wish he had used a better audio recorder, this one sounds like a Hohner Bravo III because of the camera mic and poor room acoustics!

The big thing about the Gola... it's not made so much for the listeners as it is for the player. The intimate tones, the hyper responsiveness of the reeds and unmatched effortless dynamics are all things that are best felt when you are playing it, less so when hearing it.

 

[dak]

A brief look at a 1958 Hohner Gola

It has a friendly sound.

 

[PhiliGol]

Always a question of personal preference - unless the recording quality isn’t fooling me to me that one has too much tremolo.

 

[Walker]

Gola 414 is a fine accordion... Some folk say the best 414s were the very early ones, like this, with the characteristic wider oval "spoon" couplers and the grill metalwork that goes all the way down to the keys.

I particularly like the "violin" sound that's enhanced by the aluminium mute (even when open) and gives extra shimmer to the sound. The photos here also show it's got a 6 voice bass too. Cool!

 

[debra]

It's good that the video shows shots of what maintenance was done on the accordion. You cannot expect a 1958 accordion to still be in pristine condition after 65 years. The wax and valves do need to be replaced after so much time, and even when used in "clean" environments dust gets inside and a good cleaning is needed as well (in fact it is needed after much less time than that).

 

[JerryPH]

Always a question of personal preference - unless the recording quality isn’t fooling me to me that one has too much tremolo.

Don't forget each Gola is originally custom made for someone and tuning is going to vary wildly from box to box.

I've played dry tuned 414's and 454's with minimal tremolo, and I've played a Gola 414 with near tuning. The harsher tremolo is not for my ears, but this Gola does have more than standard tremolo, in fact, an educated guess would place it somewhere close to my own. I realized it was not "standard tremolo" when first playing it and was very pleasantly surprised to hear more tremolo than my Morino VI N.

Something that made me chuckle... when my friend Keith Anderson (the person who currently has my Gola and is going through it top to bottom), first played it the first words out of his mouth were "oh... thank God it has a nicer musette than standard factory dry tuning"... lol. Now OBVIOUSLY that was a personal opinion, but I really like the musette of my Gola... more than the Morino and slightly less than the Beltuna, so for me, just perfect (if it was not to my liking I would gladly pay to have it placed where I wished, but as it is, there is no need!).

Some folk say the best 414s were the very early ones

That's very true. The reason was that from 1956 until 1973 Giovanni Gola himself touched and approved each and every Gola before he himself stamped his name on the inside. When he left in '73 Hohner did their best to try and preserve processes and people in place as much as possible after Gola retired so quality was more or less kept up until around 1985 by which time all the "original" team was gone, and full processes and knowledge were not fully transferred and the people that replaced them did not quite share Gola's sense of perfection or training and evidence of things starting to fall in the quality department became slowly apparent. Different reeds were chosen, not quite the same care in matching responsiveness was used and fewer quality trained people were available to make these boxes all took their toll.

You cannot expect a 1958 accordion to still be in pristine condition after 65 years. The wax and valves do need to be replaced after so much time, and even when used in "clean" environments dust gets inside and a good cleaning is needed as well (in fact it is needed after much less time than that).

Indeed! Also, generally speaking most (but not all), Gola accordions were made for demanding players (professional or not), and were worked hard for most of their lives and made to perform in difficult conditions. That alone kind of mandates a need for more regular maintenance.

Hate to say it, but mine was dirty as heck inside and out when I received it and its only a 1980 model!