1966 Harmony-made Regal-branded H77 Rocket Hollowbody Electric Guitar

Harmony Rockets are always cool guitars, with their hot DeArmond pickups and low-brow ES-335/Epi Casino vibe. While this one has Regal branding at the headstock and black knobs instead of translucent ones, it's otherwise the same as a same-year Harmony H77 Rocket, right down to the flamed maple veneer on the top and back. The white-backed "moustache" pickup housings just add to the cool. It has an S-66 date stamp inside the body.

This guitar came to me on consignment and arrived in good order and needing just light work. Its only replacement part is the rosewood bridge which is, frankly, an upgrade compared to the ebonized maple ones of dubious quality usually found on Rockets.

After work was done, this guitar has a great "roots-rock" voice that can flit between honky-tonk and rockabilly, blues, and straight-up rock quite easily. The DeArmond pickups have a good snarl in the middle and bridge positions and a nice, chunky, grungy, driving quality at the neck position. There are three "on/off" switches for the pickups, so the player can dial-in their tone with any configuration of the three they see fit. A wider nut width and Jaguar-like short scale give it a fast, relaxed feel that's easy to handle.

Work included: a fret level/dress, additional ground wire to the tailpiece, new bone nut, new bridge top/saddle with compensation for modern 3-plain, 3-wound stringing, cleaning, and a good setup.

Setup notes: action is a spot-on 1/16" overall at the 12th fret, the neck is straight and the truss rod works, and the gauges are 46w-10.

Scale length: 24 1/8"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

String spacing at nut: 1 7/16"

String spacing at bridge: 1 7/8"

Body length: 18 1/4"

Lower bout width: 15 1/2"

Waist width: 9 1/4"

Upper bout width: 11 3/8"

Side depth at endpin: 1 7/8" +top/back arch

Top wood: ply flamed maple

Back wood: ply flamed maple

Sides wood: solid birch or solid maple

Neck wood: poplar

Bracing type: tonebar

Fretboard: ebonized maple

Bridge: replacement rosewood adjustable, compensated saddle

Neck feel: medium C-shape, ~10" board radius

Condition notes: pretty clean throughout and all-original save bridge and nut. There's a little finish damage under the foot of the bridge (someone tried to glue it on at some point) and there's old crack repairs to the side near the jack (it's stable), but otherwise it looks great. The headstock's glued-on "ears" show a slight bit of creep at their joints on the back of the headstock but they're in good order. The original tuners look great but are a little fussy. I have a set of similar-looking, good-quality, Gotoh Kluson-style units on hand if one wants to swap these out.

While the pickguard looks original, someone changed its mounting style. It originally had a bracket that connected to the side, but someone modified that to a simple top-mount style with a spacer between the pickguard and the top surrounding the lower screw.