c.1930 Harmony-made "Vagabond" Parlor Guitar
This guitar was made by Harmony, probably for some distributor (I feel vaguely like I recall seeing a B&J mark on a "Vagabond" instrument before...), and features a solid spruce top, solid birch back/sides/neck... and incredible volume, punch, and sustain.
I did a bunch of work on this guitar... regluing seams, lots of cleaning, fret dress, new bridge, new bone nut and saddle, new rosewood bridge pins, cleaning, setup, and -- the binding was missing on the neck but some prior owner had shaved the "ridge" where the binding sits above down flush with the board edges... so... I cleaned that up a bit, sealed the open wood with some finish, and "ebonized" the side of the fretboard edge to give it more of a "done" look to it.
It has a slight bit of relief on the treble side (like, under 1/32") and after setup the instrument plays with 1/8" (from the board) action at the 12th, which is pretty much "factory standard" for these guitars. With the 52w to 11 strings on it, it sounds great, warm and punchy. It's a very gutsy guitar, and I expected that -- because I've worked on essentially the same model guitar about a half dozen times, each one with a similar awesome tone.
It's a superlative blues or fingerstyle guitar, and has a very "old timey" tone when flatpicked.
I did a bunch of work on this guitar... regluing seams, lots of cleaning, fret dress, new bridge, new bone nut and saddle, new rosewood bridge pins, cleaning, setup, and -- the binding was missing on the neck but some prior owner had shaved the "ridge" where the binding sits above down flush with the board edges... so... I cleaned that up a bit, sealed the open wood with some finish, and "ebonized" the side of the fretboard edge to give it more of a "done" look to it.
It has a slight bit of relief on the treble side (like, under 1/32") and after setup the instrument plays with 1/8" (from the board) action at the 12th, which is pretty much "factory standard" for these guitars. With the 52w to 11 strings on it, it sounds great, warm and punchy. It's a very gutsy guitar, and I expected that -- because I've worked on essentially the same model guitar about a half dozen times, each one with a similar awesome tone.
It's a superlative blues or fingerstyle guitar, and has a very "old timey" tone when flatpicked.
Check out the sweet pickguard.
Red/green fret markers are way cool.
New bone nut.
New rosewood bridge/pins,bone saddle. Wing "dots" are abalone.
This decal is very detailed and crisp and looks fantastic. I'm a huge fan of old Robin Hood movies and stories and this guitar has totally sunk its teeth into me!
Fun red/brown sunburst all over.
Original tuners work great and are nice and clean. I oiled them up and cleaned them up a bit. White bakelite buttons.
Good neck set.
Neck profile is a comfortable (but rather thicker than say an old Martin) V shape.
Oh, right... body has top binding and soundhole binding in multi-ply celluloid.
Comments
RK
How much are they worth out of curiosity?
Thanks,