1930s Harmony-made Supertone Gene Autry Round-Up 00-Size Flattop Guitar

Update 2019: I sold this last year but the owner has shuffled things around and decided to sell. I've updated the entire post with a new description, photos, video, and details.

Harmony made this 00-size, 14-fret guitar for the Sears Supertone line and it was called "Model 243" in their lingo. Most folks know it as the 14-fret Gene Autry Round-Up as the more student-level, 12-fret, parlor-sized Round-Ups are way more comoon. This version is a bit of a Harmony take on a Martin 00-18, albeit with spruce over birch instead of spruce over mahogany. The rest of the details are Chicago-school, too -- ladder-bracing, a big neck, and so much cowboy stencil on the top that you'll feel the rumble of the herd rubbing against your belly.

It's a nice, open-sounding, folksy sort-of box. I like these fingerpicked a lot, but they also make good flatpickers for folks that don't hit their instruments too hard and use medium or lighter picks. Harmony products from the time are built light enough that if you really bang on them they sort-of compress and zip, but if you're restrained they have a lot of complexity to enjoy that you might not be expecting.

Work included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, side dots install, replacement bridge (but it's an actual vintage Harmony bridge in rosewood, of all things), new saddle, new ebony pins, replacement (parts-bin) vintage tuners, and 6 hairline crack repairs/cleat jobs to the top. Those are all good to go. It plays with bang-on 3/32" EA and 1/16" DGBE action at the 12th fret and has a straight neck. It has something like 50w, 40w, 30w, 22w, 16, 12 gauges on it. I'd suggest that as the heaviest one should use for standard tuning. Something like 50w-11 would be a good "off the rack" set to buy for it.

Scale length: 25 1/8"
Nut width: 1 11/16"
String spacing at nut: 1 1/2"
String spacing at saddle: 2 1/4"

Body length: 18 3/4"
Lower bout width: 13 7/8"
Upper bout width: 10"

Side depth at endpin: 3 3/4"

Top wood: solid spruce
Back/sides: solid birch
Neck wood: poplar
Fretboard: ebonized maple

Neck shape: flat board, medium-to-big C/slight-V-shaped rear

Bridge: rosewood

Nut: original bone

Saddle: new synthetic (lower spare included)

Condition notes: 6 repaired hairline cracks to the top, replacement bridge, pins, and saddle. Otherwise fairly clean and with very clean stencils.

There's minor chip-out at the 14th fret on the board.

Note the mismatched tuners -- I had the right type of tuners in my parts-bins, but the only trouble was that said matched plates didn't have matched buttons. Oh well! I kinda love it.