Quote:
Originally Posted by freedomfarm
I've been keeping an eye out for an inexpensive tenor guitar and have been checking the usual channels. This is a quote from stellaguitars.com:
"Until the 1970s, the Harmony Company used only solid woods for just about every acoustic flat top instrument they made. Their Stella instruments were made from solid slab-sawn birch, which to the untrained eye often has a grain pattern that looks rather like "plywood". Harmony Stella guitars usually have a poplar neck with a dyed maple or birch fingerboard. High-end Harmony flat tops feature solid mahogany and solid spruce components."
The one I'm looking at is being touted as a sixties vintage, but the close up pic through the sound hole looks like it's made from fiber board (the back anyway). This particular one says Stella & Harmony on the head.  |
As long as it doesn't say "Harmony Stella, Est. 1892" on the headstock it should be a real Harmony Stella.
Along with the above on the headstock, it should have a paper label, look in the lower right corner for "Made In Taiwan".
If it has these markings, it was made after 1975, and they were laminates, or as some refer to them, "plywood".
Most Harmony guitars have a blue stamped Made in USA, along with a model number, and a mfg. date inside the sound hole and most were solid wood construction.