Help with identification

[Namvet]

A friend showed me a Harmony guitar he would like some information on. I have some photos but can only send them via picture text. The headstock is marked "Harmony Concert Lyre". The front of the headstock and the fretboard are abalone with three dots located at the 5th, 7th and 10th frets. The tuners are one piece open tuners. There are two soundholes located at the base of the fretboard with a plastic "tortise" pickguard that is a sweeping teardrop shape. the back and sides appear to be mahogany and the top spruce. The body has a thin binding top & bottom and the soundholes are bound (saw this type of soundholes on a resinator guitar). The top of the body is curved like a double bit axe and curves in on both sides. Bridge looks to have been modified from wrap around to a mahogany tailpiece w/bridge (plastic). Nut looks to be bone. Condition is fair (two cracks in the top from the bottom edge to the bridge/tailpiece. No tag on the inside though it appears one may have been glued in at one time. There is also abalone insert at the base of the neck where it joins the body. I have not had any luck identifying throught the Harmony databases. If anyone wants the photos, send me a cell number and I will picture message the photos. Thanks in advance for any info.

Namvet

[TommyK]

Never heard of such a thing. Nope, not gonna give you my cell a. because my phone won't display pictures. b. in today's world that is just too dangerous. No offense, but we just met.

 

See if you can figure out how to upload the photos to photobucket, then post a link here.

 

By your description, it sounds like it may have began life as a Harmony guitar, but someone heavily modified it. Without pics I can't say for sure.

 

Even their high class Patricians didn't sport abalone.

 

Here is a good Harmony Guitar site with catalog pages. Maybe you can match it up to something there:

 

http://www.broadwaymusicco.com/harmony26.htm

[Namvet]

Never heard of such a thing. Nope, not gonna give you my cell a. because my phone won't display pictures. b. in today's world that is just too dangerous. No offense, but we just met.

 

See if you can figure out how to upload the photos to photobucket, then post a link here.

 

By your description, it sounds like it may have began life as a Harmony guitar, but someone heavily modified it. Without pics I can't say for sure.

 

Thanks, will give it a look

 

Even their high class Patricians didn't sport abalone.

 

Here is a good Harmony Guitar site with catalog pages. Maybe you can match it up to something there:

 

http://www.broadwaymusicco.com/harmony26.htm

[milod]

I have a rather nice H65 single pickup "jazz" Harmony made apparently 1956-60. Some of the nicer inlays done by Harmony, albeit on a slightly shortened 24 1/4 inch scale. So... I dunno about the H65 being made into the '60s, though.

 

But abalone? Nope that I've heard of from the original "real" Harmonies.

 

BTW, http://harmonyguitar.net/vintage-harmony-h65-electric-archtop-guitar/704

 

or: http://harmony.demont.net/guitars/H65/189.htm

 

I found this Youtube bit - not me, but the guitar's the same one. You can see it plays and sounds nice and looks half decent.

 

They're very similar to mine in condition. The pickup is NOT a Gibson P13 from other sources I've read - but who cares, it does sound quite nice. Mine had Grovers added in a not-so-perfect way; a nice Tunamatic type bridge is in use and the old rosewood one is in the case. The fleur de lis on my headstock has been bashed a bit; lost the original white pickguard. Also mine has a different tailpiece. @#%#@$%

 

Anyway, I've not heard of an instance of a real Harmony with abalone.

 

BTW, the necks on the late '50s models such as mine, at least, are like baseball bats, but oddly don't play all that badly. I used mine off and on for a cupla years doing country/rock and it worked quite well.

 

m

[TommyK]

Just curious. Many Harmonies have really wide headstocks. In that a sharper lateral, headstock break is supposed to enhance volume and tone, do you think that wider headstocks, making for a sharper longitudial break from the nut slot to the tuner spindle has any affect on tone/volume?

 

You can see it in Milod's second link.

[milod]

Tommy...

 

I know folks will say this or that about tone, but I think the majority of the reason for some bits of Harmony guitar design was a recognition that the woods were not top end, the manufacturing process wasn't top end and that the engineering was designed to make up for all of that.

 

Neck a little thicker than a Gibson or Martin? Hey, the neck didn't break off, either, unless you used it as a ball bat or ladder. There have been warnings over the years about cracking of the headstocks where the tuning begs are drilled out - which may be considered either a design weakness or a material weakness that trumped the purpose of a larger piece of wood for strength purposes.

 

Laugh it you will, but in ways the Harmony "playing" guitars (as opposed to the crap that sold for $3 and would almost inevitably be tossed by most folks) were a lot like the old DC-3 airplane. They weren't certain when it was designed exactly how will certain bits of material and design would hold up, so they over-engineered it to be exceptionally durable even if certain other factors weren't up to "performance" snuff.

 

I had several other Harmony guitars in the olden days - even a 12-string Stella made by Harmony. They were both better and worse than one might imagine - if that makes any sense at all. Yet they were the best bang for the buck guitars I saw available at the time.

 

m

[Namvet]

Just curious. Many Harmonies have really wide headstocks. In that a sharper lateral, headstock break is supposed to enhance volume and tone, do you think that wider headstocks, making for a sharper longitudial break from the nut slot to the tuner spindle has any affect on tone/volume?

 

You can see it in Milod's second link.

 

This ones headstock is averaged sized and hourglass shaped and is at approximately angled 17 degrees at the nut which I assume is to maintain constant tension on the strings. I'm no expert so I'm just guessing. As to the size of the headstock having an effect on tone/volumn, I would think not. String vibration occurs between the nut and saddle. The headstock being outside this zone leaves the probability than some vibration is transferred to the headstock through the neck, but I would not think enough to present anything noticable. Again, I'm no authority, just guessing.