So -- there are two versions of this guitar. There's the H1253 Roy Smeck variant and this one -- the H1250 Jamboree. It's a jumbo guitar at 16 1/2" on the lower bout, though the body depth is archtop-style thin at just 3 1/2" overall. The neck is of the style seen on nicer-grade Harmony archtops (at the time) and it has the stupidly-cool aluminum "Harmometal" binding. The top is ladder-braced solid spruce while the back and sides are solid birch;
What's it sound like? What you might expect -- midsy and forward, a bit of a nice rumble to it, and tons of punch. It's a great sound for old-country chord-chopping or rockabilly thumping. It has a truss rod which is a huge help on an old Harmony because so many of these poplar-necked wonders wind-up with a hair of warp (or more) in the neck without one. This one's (thankfully) straight due to its inclusion.
At some point, this guitar's top was either refinished entirely or spot-refinished because the original bridge footprint and original screwed-down pickguard footprint was long-gone. The top finish looks original, though, so if it was entirely refinished it must have been done a long time ago and with sprayed lacquer. It matches the rest of the guitar's look. There's the leavings of a weird, giant, two-sided pickguard glue-trail around the soundhole, though, but it's not too obvious at a glance.
The pickguard on it right now is not original or correct for the guitar, but it follows the "vibe" of the original archtop-style pickguard in its color and batwing shape. This one is from a late-'50s Harmony Stella parlor guitar and it was in my collection.
Post-many-repairs, it plays spot-on and is ready to go.
Repairs included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, new ebony bridge, new bone saddle, two back brace replacements (I opted for oak "strapping" braces as the top no longer conformed to the old, damaged braces), cleaning, and setup.
Condition notes: there's finish disturbance around the soundhole. The sides have some finish flaking here and there. There's some finish disturbance to the back of the neck in first position as someone left tape on there too long. The fretboard extension slopes down from the rest of the board over the body, but not by much. There's general light playwear throughout as well and the fretboard's surface is a bit battered and bruised finish-wise. I can find no cracks. The screws for the top edge of the metal binding are all replacements but the back edge's screws are all original.
It comes with: an old hard case in so-so shape, as I recall.
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