Niceties, when the original Harmony factory in Chicago went out of business in the early 1970's they sold off their remaining inventory of halfway finished instruments at nickel on the dollar prices. There was a local guy in Kansas City that I knew named Truman Haddox who had a little musical school and instrument repair shop in an old WWII-vintage barracks building that was located on the grounds of the world headquarters of Campus Crusade For Christ, which at that time was on Rainbow Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas.
Truman's true joy in life was getting junk instruments for dirt cheap, fixing them up so they'd be marginally functional, then turning around and selling them to people at the church who'd get them for their children to learn on. Truman went to that sale at Harmony and brought back all sorts of mostly-finished instruments so he could complete what needed to be done and sell them to his client base.
Anyway, one of the instruments he had there was a Harmony electric mandolin that was complete except for its pickup and all the other hardware. I think he sold it to me for $25 or so, and then I bought a bridge, tuners and tailpiece and strung it up and used it as my first mandolin. I didn't bother trying to find a pickup for it.
Once I got it strung up, it was playable, which is about as much as you could say about it. All laminated woods, not much tone or projection but it did have a nice sunburst on it.
Yours is a little different, but I suspect it might have originated in that same sell-off at Harmony where Truman picked up the mandolin he sold me.
Hope this helps.
Wade Hampton Miller
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