Post by twangmeister on May 4, 2022 10:22:16 GMT -5
Back when I started playing in the early sixties Harmony guitars were common due to their availability through mail-order catalogs and music stores. Fender and Gibson guitars were the instruments of grownups with regular jobs. But Harmony, Danelectro and to a lesser degree, National were guitars that could be delivered to your front door via US mail.
My first Harmony was a 1958 Espanada single cutaway archtop I bought from my brother in 1963 for $20. Back in the day it was considered a fairly good guitar. It had a nonadjustable trussrod and was developing a bowed neck. Thanks to the heavier gauge strings it was only going to get worse. So I sold it to a schoolmate for $25. It was the only electric I ever owned with P-13 pickups.
Number two was a 1963 Harmony Silhouette with DeArmond's fanciest gold foil pickups. The music store charged me $50. After getting it home I found out it didn't intonate properly. Apparently the previous owner lost the bridge and the music store had substituted a slightly different rosewood adjustable bridge not bothering to set it up correctly. When I brought that up with one of the salesmen he gave me a quick lesson on bridge positioning and gave me a free set of strings. This was also the first guitar I ever refinished--in clear urethane.
I bought the last one in 1977, a mid sixties Harmony Bobcat with a single gold foil DeArmond pickup for $20 at an Army thrift store. Wish I still had it.
Before I bought my first bass I wanted a Harmony H-13 hollowbody bass, but never found a used one at a reasonable price. I remember the street price for a new one was north of $120--that would have been a hell of a lot of grass cutting to get one at $3 to$5 a pop.
Anybody own a Harmony electric?
My first Harmony was a 1958 Espanada single cutaway archtop I bought from my brother in 1963 for $20. Back in the day it was considered a fairly good guitar. It had a nonadjustable trussrod and was developing a bowed neck. Thanks to the heavier gauge strings it was only going to get worse. So I sold it to a schoolmate for $25. It was the only electric I ever owned with P-13 pickups.
Number two was a 1963 Harmony Silhouette with DeArmond's fanciest gold foil pickups. The music store charged me $50. After getting it home I found out it didn't intonate properly. Apparently the previous owner lost the bridge and the music store had substituted a slightly different rosewood adjustable bridge not bothering to set it up correctly. When I brought that up with one of the salesmen he gave me a quick lesson on bridge positioning and gave me a free set of strings. This was also the first guitar I ever refinished--in clear urethane.
I bought the last one in 1977, a mid sixties Harmony Bobcat with a single gold foil DeArmond pickup for $20 at an Army thrift store. Wish I still had it.
Before I bought my first bass I wanted a Harmony H-13 hollowbody bass, but never found a used one at a reasonable price. I remember the street price for a new one was north of $120--that would have been a hell of a lot of grass cutting to get one at $3 to$5 a pop.
Anybody own a Harmony electric?
