Left this at the boot sale this morning......

Neil

Having my usual wander around the boot sale this morning when I came across a small  old  Harmony guitar.

Looked to be from the '40's, the tailpiece was all rusted and looked just like the one below except it had a thin solid headstock, bit like a Danelectro with a Harmony logo and a sticker inside about being made in the USA.

Was a bit worn looking and the top had started to come away very slightly but I guess could be glued down again.

It was with another no-name guitar that was just signed on the headstock , "steel reinforced neck" and came in a Harrods soft bag.

They were a fiver each but after looking them over I declined as really I don't need any more junk TBH.

I see they have an almost identical model, even down to the soundhole rosette but with a different headstock on Reverb.com for $239 but cheap crap is still cheap crap whether old or not isn't it?




https://reverb.com/item/680667-harmony-encore-symphony-parlor-guitar-2-color-sunburst

WezV

My regal resonator has the same Harmony Identa tailpiece.  when i listed it on ebay as 1937 someone told me I was wrong as this tailpiece didn't appear till 1942... which was a bit odd as regal stopped making resonators in 1941

it will be cheap and rough aroudn the edges, but some have a bit of charm...  it will have a better brazilian rosewood fretboard than anything you can get from modern stocks

ICBM

The 'steel reinforced neck' no-name model might have been a Japanese Kay, I think they had that on them. Those generally are pretty junk, although they usually can be made playable.

I always tend to buy this sort of thing unless they're really falling apart, you can usually clean them up, restring them and get at least £50 for them from someone looking for an 'authentic' blues sound.

The Harmony might have been worth a fair bit more, although it's always dependent on them being structurally sound.

Neil

Thanks for the info Gents, very educational.

I must admit that later this afternoon I wondered if I should have bought them home but too late now....



 

ThePrettyDamned

@wezv as they have beautiful Brazilian rosewood boards (still don't truly know the advantage over others?) is is possible to salvage the board and reuse it?

WezV

yeah, although I am generally against cannibalizing old guitars in that way

 but you can easily separate fretboard and neck and the fretboard is totally reusable - although its only 19 frets worth so  won't be good for the electric builders

the issues are normally that they can already have quite deep divots from finger wear, may have inlays in odd places and may not be that accurately slotted.  each one should be judged on its merits to see if its worthwhile

on a guitar like this it normally has quite a bowed neck and can benefit from having some reinforcement added and a neck reset.  not worth it for value, but you can get a funky and playable vintage parlour this way.... now if you were to do some of this work anyway i don't see an issue with snaffling the board away and replacing it with a new one.

also, its not valuable for its beauty.  it will look a lot plainer than any braz rw you see getting put on modern guitars.  it will be straight grained and boring

ThePrettyDamned

WezV;669936" said:

yeah, although I am generally against cannibalizing old guitars in that way

 but you can easily separate fretboard and neck and the fretboard is totally reusable - although its only 19 frets worth so  won't be good for the electric builders

the issues are normally that they can already have quite deep divots from finger wear, may have inlays in odd places and may not be that accurately slotted.  each one should be judged on its merits to see if its worthwhile

on a guitar like this it normally has quite a bowed neck and can benefit from having some reinforcement added and a neck reset.  not worth it for value, but you can get a funky and playable vintage parlour this way.... now if you were to do some of this work anyway i don't see an issue with snaffling the board away and replacing it with a new one.



also, its not valuable for its beauty.  it will look a lot plainer than any braz rw you see getting put on modern guitars.  it will be straight grained and boring

But that's desirable in a Brazilian board, right? And for its rarity compared to modern substitutes (which I find quite attractive...).

Cool! I guess you're right, seems a shame to butcher one if it's salvageable but if not, it's a neat way of getting a potentially usable board.

WezV

totally desirable, a lot more so than any pretty BRW board

ThePrettyDamned

Wow. Seems quite comedic that a poor quality modern Braz board is worth a small fortune, but on an old beater with a lot of history, it's car boot money!

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

Wow. Seems quite comedic that a poor quality modern Braz board is worth a small fortune, but on an old beater with a lot of history, it's car boot money!

It does, but as Wez said the practical problems of turning an old board into a new one are quite serious… it needs to be long enough, it needs to have the correct fret spacing or be thick enough to completely re-surface, ditto with any inlay holes, or if both of those are OK, not to have much wear.

Old classical guitars might look to be a better source since they're almost all thicker and without inlays, but they still generally aren't going to be long enough - most are too short even for a full 19th fret. Most old classicals are worth a bit more, too...

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;670036" said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

Wow. Seems quite comedic that a poor quality modern Braz board is worth a small fortune, but on an old beater with a lot of history, it's car boot money!





It does, but as Wez said the practical problems of turning an old board into a new one are quite serious… it needs to be long enough, it needs to have the correct fret spacing or be thick enough to completely re-surface, ditto with any inlay holes, or if both of those are OK, not to have much wear.

Old classical guitars might look to be a better source since they're almost all thicker and without inlays, but they still generally aren't going to be long enough - most are too short even for a full 19th fret. Most old classicals are worth a bit more, too...

But to rebuild a parlour there is a chance it's useful? Edit: potentially

axisus

I'd have bought it for a fiver. 

WezV

indeed

here are a couple of examples f the BRW scenario on old guitars

this is a 1955 framus i brought which had a BRW board

cost me £50.  needed a neck reset, had quite a bow and neck was mahoosive.   I took the neck and fretboard off, inserted CF bars and added a new fretboard.   the old BRW one was 4.5mm thick and has stupid inlays that take up half that.   for me i would rather use a proper sized bit of wood so the BRW was essentially scrap

my regal that is a similar age to this parlour with woodwork from the same factory has a thicker board, with relatively normal inlay positions - but a lot more divots and some letters carved into it

there probably would be enough to work with there - but its such an unusual old beast I am not going to be cannibalizing it... but if this guitar was dead and past saving???

Sassafras

Love the f-holes on that Framus. Not so keen on the headstock or the weird fret inlays. Still, a nice looking guitar. I really like some of those old cheap budget guitars. They can usually be made far more playable with a bit of work.

57Deluxe

these cheapos are great for going busking with though...

WezV

Well after slimming the neck down and adding reinforcement that one got a new fretboard with dot inlays, I reset the neck, got a new bridge. then added an aged floating pickup and an endpin jack.   I also made an aged pearloid guard to fit on it that matches the headstock, but I still haven't attached it

 

totally not worth the work I have done on it, but its not all about money

 

SNAKEBITE

I suppose it boils down to how much it is worth to you.

For £5 it is always worth a pop, but like you said, it could just be junk sitting around at the end of the day!

Neil

SNAKEBITE said:

I suppose it boils down to how much it is worth to you.

For £5 it is always worth a pop, but like you said, it could just be junk sitting around at the end of the day!

My thoughts exactly..

Although if I had the skills of Wes or ICBM it would have been a different matter.

ICBM

Neil said:

Although if I had the skills of Wes or ICBM it would have been a different matter.

Hey! Don't put me in the same class as Wez . I'm an amp tech who dabbles a bit in guitar repair… I draw the line at glueing cracks, a bit of fret work and replacing hardware.

But like Wez I do often fix up this sort of old thing for far less profit than the amount of time it takes - I just don't like to see a salvageable musical instrument go to waste really.