Guitar Story #11: Harmony H62
Details
- Harmony H62
- Year Purchased: 1997
- Price Paid: $225.00 ($362.82 in 2021 dollars)
- Notes: REALLY MISS THIS ONE
In fall of 1996 I somehow managed to get myself hired as a salesperson and guitar tech at a vintage guitar shop in Seattle. It was a new shop and pretty small those first few years but there was a steady stream of cool guitars and cool people moving through there daily. I made a lot of lifelong friends and got to play and work on a lot of classic guitars. I also got to go to guitar shows which was really exciting.
I got this Harmony H62 as a “fixer upper” for $225.00 at my first guitar show. It needed some work but was mostly all there and was really beautiful. The biggest issue was some bellying behind the bridge that caused the pickups to be a little too far from the strings. I fashioned some pickup ring spacers out of black art board that I gave several coats of lacquer. It worked great and the guitar sounded fantastic. I also replaced the tuners, which were completely worn out, with an era correct set from my parts bin. It had a really great neck, an authentic old-timey sound and I played a handful of stripped down shows with it.
The H62 was one of Harmony’s top of the line archtops. It came stock with Gibson P-13 pickups (precursor to the P-90) and was quite the beast. This is one of the few guitars I regret getting rid of. I used it as partial trade towards my 52 reissue Telecaster. It looked cool, played great and sounded amazing. SIGH….