Hamer, based in the Chicago area, made it’s name in the late 1970s on the strength of Gibson-inspired models, such as the Standard (based on the Explorer) and the Sunburst (based on the double-cutaway Les Paul Special), but as soon as the company established a solid following among guitarists, Hamer began introducing it’s own original designs.

The Phantom A5 of 1984 – like it’s 1981 predecessor, the Prototype – had a fairly conventional body design that was basically a longhorn Stratocaster. “Fat Strats”, with a humbucker in the bridge position, were becoming a popular modification to give Fenders a more powerful sound, and Hamer appeared to take the concept to the extreme with a triple-coil bridge pickup. A pair of switches offered conventional switching (bridge, neck or both), but the second switch allowed only a humbucker-or-single option for the triple-coil, making it effectively only a Fat Strat with a relocated middle pickup.

Andy Summers of The Police had a Phantom in his arsenal of Hamers, but it remained an obscure model and did not survive Hamer’s acquisition by Kaman Music (Ovation’s parent company) in 1988.