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Preliminary Listing - photos of actual guitar, prior to commencement of restoration work.
Update - 07/02/2020 - now reserved on pre-order for a customer in London!
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These "Depression Era" guitars are always interesting....unlike the more structured post-war production from Harmony, the 1930s & early '40s, pre-war production fits very well into the old saying about 1930s Chicago guitars production...."Many makers, large & small, all making similar guitars, using similar materials & often the same parts, sometimes making guitars for each other, all making guitars for numerous distributors, usually using distributors own brand names....and nobody was taking notes!"
Hence even sources like the very useful Harmony Guitars Database is lacking detail on many a guitar model which left the Harmony factory in those days.
An example of this is the HGD details of this model H1009.....interesting both for what it does say & what it doesn't say. It gives the production date as 1940, but I read the date stamp in the guitar I have as 1936, and I have a feeling that I have read somewhere of a Laurel Leaf design connection to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The Harmony Guitars Database also shows a "Wartime" example with the wooden tailpiece, introduced at the time of metal shortages in 1944....so I think that is likely to be the production span for that model.
These guitars are furthermore interesting as the templates & forerunners of the many Parlor models Harmony produced in the Post-War years both under their own Stella name, which they acquired from the failed Oscar Schmidt Company in 1940, and a great number of identical construction but branded versions.
I am now finding that I "pre-sell" the majority of my guitars, certainly the vintage restoration Stellas and other guitars from the same era. Hence many, but not all of the guitars I have in stock are now listed on the website, in advance of restoration, or the stage where I am still working on them. This "Pre-Order" arrangement has now worked well for a good number of years....buyers reserving guitars coming through the workshop, in advance of them being fully ready, without any formal or binding commitment, and I welcome, and thankfully receive a steady stream of enquiries.
Stock Number: VTG1505.
HARMONY H1009 (204 inside stamp) 1936 - VTG1505 - Price: £599 - photos 1, 2 & 3, plus link to Harmony Guitars Database model details, shows that in typical Harmony fashion there were variations within the same model number, including both floating & fixed bridge versions! - together with the stylised Laurel wreath soundhole ring design, commemoration the Gold & Silver Medals achieved by Jesse Owens & Ralph Metcalfe at the 1936 Berlin Olympics - http://harmony.demont.net/guitars/H1009TL/391.htm
Further details to be added.
Condition & restoration details to be added, but a neck reset will be required, plus other works including possibly re-glueing a lifted top brace end.
Further details to be added.
