McCollum Harp guitar

[Teleplucker]

Here's a story that might interest some of you guys. A couple of years ago I traded for a McCollum harp guitar. I was just beginning the HG journey and I found a gentleman that owned this harp guitar and was looking for a trade. We did the deal and as I progressed on HG I fiqured out that the bass string arrangement was not going to work with the stuff I was trying to learn.

Like a lot of folks my main influence on HG is Stephen Bennett.I have been working on learning his arrangements and also using the harp guitar in a trio that I play in. The trio is harp, cello and guitar. We primarily play wedding ceremonies. The harp player is my wife. We found the cello player on craigslist of all places.

https://www.youtube.com/user/musicallyyoursnc/featured

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I progressed through a Holloway harp guitar and ended up with a great instrument built by Tony Karol. http://www.karol-guitars.com/
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I sent the McCollum guitar out to Gregg Miner to try to sell it through his website. Gregg is the foremost authority on harp guitars, so I thought he would be the best person to handle this.
http://www.harpguitarmusic.com/listings/hg-mccollum.htm

The guitar has been listed for sale for quite awhile but no one seems to be willing to put down the money. Several months ago I had the chance to meet and talk with Kathy Wingert http://www.wingertguitars.com/ about this guitar and Harp guitars in general. I asked her about the feasibility on converting the McCollum to a harp guitar with 6 sub bass strings arranged in the "conventional" harp guitar spacing. She said that it was certainly doable and she agreed to do the conversion.

This brings up the topic of modifying vintage guitars and should you do it. In this case I decided that if Kathy was willing to do it (She is one of the top builders of harp guitars today and she had a personal connection to Lance) I would go ahead and have it done.

In the end I will either keep the guitar and play it myself or it will be more marketable in the harp guitar world. Its a pretty small world I know!

Here's a link to a blog that Gregg is writing. I will try to get Kathy to do some photos of her work and post them as well.

http://harpguitars.net/blog/2013/03/...legacy-part-1/

[MikeB1]

Greetings Randall,

The Karol guitar is stunning! I should be getting my first harp guitar soon from Alistair Hay of Emerald guitars. He is building me a scaled down version.

Is yours also a shorter scale? The lower bout also looks like a manageble size! Am I close if I guess 14 inches?
It just looks like a perfect guitar.

Hope to see you at the Gathering this October in Connecticut!

[colins]

Great story Randall,

I have not tried Lance’s harp guitars but I remember very well a walnut McCollum GA guitar that I played at Schoenbergs back in 2008. What an enjoyable instrument it was, and the walnut helped make it sound fantastic. Playing that instrument prompted me to ask Lance to build me a baritone, and there is another story in that guitar that will be told one day.

I have no doubt that Kathy will do a fantastic job, as she understands harp guitars and was a good friend of Lance. I am sure you will end up with something very special. Keep us posted!

Col

[Teleplucker]

The Karol Belair harp guitar is the first one that he built, he has changed the cutaway on some of the newer ones. It measures about 15.5 inches across the lower bout. It has a multi scale slanted fret neck. The slant is very subtle though, about 25.25 on treble and 25.75 on the bass end.

It is very comfortable to play in the "classical position".

I am sure that Kathy will do a great job on the McCollum and Im really looking forward to playing it again. I had just started trying to play HG when I had the McCollum here at the house so I was very limited in what I could actually play on it. Even so it was a great sounding guitar. Hopefully I have progressed in my journey and I can get some good sounds out of it.

[jaymarsch]

Thanks for sharing this, Randall.
Your harp guitar is beautiful. I have had the pleasure of playing a few of Kathy's harp guitars over the years and I am so pleased that she can help with the McCollum. I enjoyed playing her mini-harp guitar just last August!

I look forward to future reports.

Best regards,
Jayne

[jay7347]

Hey Randall, so you're the one! Lol. Sorry I've lusted after that guitar many a time in the last year or so. The mojo and tone in it must be off the charts. Your Karol is equally outstanding and the multiscale is just to die for. Have no fear about the alteration. If Kathy Wingert says it can be done, it can be done. You're in fine hands.

Hope the surgery goes well!
-jay (A harp guitar wannabe in a most painful way! Someday... oh someday!)

[Teleplucker]

That's pretty funny Jay. When Gregg first listed the McCollum I was very impressed with the way he did the write up and the pics. It made me want to buy the guitar! It is a beautiful guitar, the walnut back is off the charts.
It is in very good hands and I sure the patient will come through the surgery better than ever.

[green614]

i own the next belair harp after yours. I'm enjoying it very much but wish I had more time to play it.

[jay7347]

Just curious Randall. Is Kathy thinking of replacing the whole sub bass head? I was going nuts trying to visualize how she would redo that.
-jay

[Teleplucker]

Kathy has not told me her plans yet, her first impression was something about replacing the bridge and a "small" change to the headstock. I have also been wondering how it was going to work.
I got an email from her earlier this week that indicated she had some time coming up soon to formulate a plan for the change. So we will see what she comes up with. Her goal was to change as little as possible.

[ericcsong]

randall, looks great! thanks for sharing!

[Teleplucker]

Here's a link to Gregg Miner's updated blog about McCollum harp guitars and the link with Michael Hedges. Very interesting reading

http://harpguitars.net/blog/2013/03/...legacy-part-2/

[jay7347]

Hey Randall, did I read it right that you got this from Kit at Old Time Pickin Parlor in north Denver or did the person you got the McCollum from got it from Kit? Had I known Kit had it, well... I guess I probably still couldn't have afforded it. Didn't know he ever had harp guitars in there. (If I'm talking about the same store that is.)

-jay

[Teleplucker]

I got the guitar from Brian Mikiten. He posted an ad on this very forum looking to trade a McCollum Harp guitar for an archtop. I don't think Brian is active on this forum but he is a good guy. I knew McCollum was a great guitar builder so I was very interested.

In the early 90's back in the days when you placed your guitar order by phone and sent checks by mail I had Steve Andersen build two guitars for me.
It was the first time that I imagined having a guitar built, and the idea came from the Acoustic Guitar magazine cover that announced the new golden age of guitar building. Steve was featured in that article, and I have always loved the look of archtop guitars.

I remember calling him and talking about ordering a guitar, I asked him if I had to audition for him to build me one. His was reply was "no, you just have to pay me". I find that to still be the case in this game of guitar building and playing!
So anyway Brian and I started emailing back and forth and we came to an agreement that we would ship the guitars to each other, but either person could terminate the deal. When I got the McCollum I realized that it was an awesome guitar but the string arrangement was going to be a problem. I emailed Gregg Miner many times about the market value of the guitar and decided to take a gamble and do the trade.

Gregg has had the guitar for quite awhile, and several people have played it and loved it but so far no takers. After talking with Kathy Wingert I decided that it would be better to have the conversion and have the guitar to play and enjoy myself. That is supposed to be the point in all this, right?

So thats where its headed unless a last minute buyer pops up. It's pretty amazing the amout of time that Gregg has put into researching this guitar and Lance's production of harp guitars. He is truly a man on a mission.

[Teleplucker]

Here's an update to this thread. The McCollum harp guitar started life like this
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Looks pretty cool, but if you look at the spacing between the regular strings and the subs you notice that its very different from the typical harp guitar configuration.
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After I got the guitar and started learning how to play I realized how unworkable that spacing was, so I put it up for sale. This started a full scale investigation on the history of McCollum harp guitars.
http://harpguitars.net/blog/2013/12/mccollum-michael/

The guitar never sold so I asked Kathy Wingert if she could modify it. It turned out to be a little more complicated than she thought. But we are making progress.
It became apparent that the top was going to have to be refinished because of the footprint left by the strange bridge position. We decided to go with black.
Of course the harp head had to be enlarges to accommodate more strings.
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became
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And two more photos
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Still have a ways to go, but Kathy is feeling very good about the project!