Quote:
Originally Posted by Monsoon1
I found some info, and here's some cliffs: Harptone was actually a company called Standel (one of the first solid state amplifier manufacturers), who ordered custom guitars from Sam Koontz. Sam was a guitar designer for Framus and also Martin guitars, and he also built guitars himself. It's not clear if any of the guitars he buiit were sold as Harptones. He was apparently a rather prolific designer who also designed some of the machinery involved in making the guitars for Standel.
Around the mid 60's, Harptone worked with Standel to build guitars. Supposedly there were only around 200 total built.
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Close but not quite right.
Standel was an amplifier company started by Bob Crooks in the 1950's. A literal who's who of famous players played them in the day. In the early 60's Crooks decided to incorporate a line of guitars in with his amps and hired Semie Moseley, later of Mosrtie fame to make them. Maybe a half dozen or so of these got produced before the venture fell through. in the late 60's, Crooks again decided to market a line of guitars and hired Sam Koontz to make them. Bob was already producing guitars at his factory in New Jersey when he started making the Standels. They came out with a line of both electric and acoustic guitars branded Standel. I've also read the 200 produced number but i don't believe it. I've seen far too many of them personally for their only to have been 200 made. The Standel branded ones were short lived and Koontz continued making them into the 70's only instead of Standel, they said Harptone on the headstock. I don't know the production totals on these ones but it's
way more than 200.
They're cool guitars but have a few design flaws and are often in very poor condition these days. If you found one in good shape, that's a score. They aren't super valuable for a number of reasons, including that they're laminate but they can be good pretty good sounding guitars. I've owned a few over the years and have never loved the necks but have always had a bit of a soft spot for them.