1950s Harmony Mahogany Concert Ukulele

These concert-size Harmony ukes don't come up very often. This one dates from the late 50s or early 60s and is all-solid mahogany with a rosewood (thin) fretboard and brass frets. These guys sound great and are terrific bang for the buck once they've been "gone through" and made to play their best.

My work on this one included a bridge reglue and bridge shave, fret level/dress, heel crack reglue, and additional cleats on the inside to reinforce upper bout hairlines on the sides.

Rosewood board, faux MOP dots. Brass frets. This has a 14 3/4" scale and a comfortable, quick neck.

Plastic nut, cute old 50s-style Harmony logo decal.

Instead of adding a fret saddle as I normally do to bridges that might have had a bone or plastic saddle to begin with, after I shaved this one I simply profiled off the front and slotted the top in the fashion of a Weissenborn-style uke.

There's cream binding on the top, back, and soundhole. The top is crack free.

Here you can see the heel-split-related hairline on the upper bout. There's a mirror image of this crack on the other side. While they were glued up previously (amateur job), I did drop fill them a bit and add cleats for further stability.

Back has a tiny, stable, not-through hairline crack at the waist that's invisible in the pics.

Note the "space age" plastic-button tuners. I've added washers to the middle for smoother operation.

So, here you can see those upper-bout heel-crack related hairlines on the sides a little better, and also the old-school "home brew" screw-through-heel "neck reset." Fortunately this job was accompanied with glue so the heel is stable. There was a split in the neckblock right below, however, that was a little loose, so I injected glue into it and clamped it up. Now the uke is all stable and good to go.

The finish is the same type as found on 50s/60s Harmony bari ukes -- that medium golden-brown color, like golden ginger ale.

End block area.