Post by bod on Oct 3, 2014 12:26:43 GMT
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The 50s/60s Harmony H162, H165 (mahogany top version) and the more upscale Harmony Sovereigns are cool guitars in their own right, but entirely different animals from the pre-WWII guitars.
First of all, they are built much heavier, and while ladder braced, they have more braces, thicker tops, and a much drier sound. They're also OM sized guitars, not parlors.
There's a guy on ebay who sells H162s with neck resets in the $350 range. You can get one that needs a neck reset in the $150 range if you can do the work yourself. These are decent guitars, made with good materials (no laminates), but they're just an entirely different breed of animal.
If you listen to Mance Lipscomb, or watch the videos of Lightnin Hopkins playing a H165, you'll get a good idea. Also, it seems like almost half the musicians pictured in the booklet for the excellent George Mitchell Collection box set are photographed holding H162s. They were extremely popular, and there's a million of them around. Once again, they ALL need neck resets if they haven't already had one. I don't know how good the neck angles were from the factory to begin with.
I've had a bunch of them over the years, I still keep a really beat-to-hell H162 with a DeArmond pickup in it as my "electric" guitar.
This one has soaked up a LOT of sweat, and smells like an ashtray, but if you want to sound like Lightnin'...
Zak - or anyone else - do you have any experience / insight regarding the similar seeming (at least) late 60s- early 70s models with 'Fenderesque' headstocks? In particular, the (birch and spruce) H167 (first picture) and the (mahogany and spruce) H181 second picture):
Are these pretty much late variations on the H162/165 theme with a mutated headstock or are they a whole different thing? (There are more pictures and scant info on the > Harmony database <)
(I did briefly post this in the recent parlour thread, but opted for the tidiness of a new thread instead)
