Circa 1940 Harmony Professional Hawaiian Guitar

No one knows how many instruments Harmony made over the years but I suspect it was in the millions. The vast majority were inexpensive–most Harmonys were priced between $4 and $10 during the 1930s–but from time to time they would make some very nice higher priced guitars. (Click here to read the about the top-of-the-line Cremona VII archtop which also includes some Harmony history.) The Harmony Professional was another one of those better guitars. We really don’t know too much about this model. It appears for the first time in Harmony’s 1940 catalog but it doesn’t show up in any later catalogs suggesting that its $30 price tag was just too rich for the standard Harmony customer.  It has a solid spruce top, beautiful figured mahogany on the sides and back and a big square neck. I think the sunburst is very well done and the celluloid headstock overlay is flashy but not trashy. This guitar was originally built as an acosutic but at some point someone added an Electromuse Eye-Beam soundhole mount pickup. Electromuse was a Chicago-based builder of student grade lap steels but they also manufactured aftermarket pickups like this, which are in fairly high demand in the vintage steel guitar community. When this guitar was made, acoustic lap steels were not in much demand, which was probably another reason why Harmony only made this guitar for a year or two. And that’s too bad because I suspect that this guitar sounds really good. This Harmony Professional is currently at Elderly Instruments and it’s priced at $1950.

Click here for the original listing.

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