1960s Harmony Stella 000-Size Birch Guitar

Strangely-enough, the Harmony ink-stamps on the inside of the body are illegible. That means I can't date it or figure the model exactly, but suffice to say this appears to be an iteration of the H941 model and it's probably late-'60s or early-'70s judging by that nice red soundhole ring and yellowy-green sunburst finish.

I worked on this a while back for a buddy and he's now moved into different boxes, so this is back here for consignment. As I recall, I gave it a fret level/dress, cut a new pickguard (copied from an original Harmony shape), and modified the bridge to feature a properly-compensated, rosewood saddle. These changes made this into a nice player and it's ready to go.

This is the sort of guitar that I often fit a soundhole pickup in (for you indie-rocker, alt-country, bluesy-picker types) and that can be arranged, I suppose!

I like these all-birch Harmony products in open tunings best, but as you can hear in the video (even with old, somewhat-dead strings), it does "standard" just fine. Fingerpicking really shines on them, though, for that woody "old school" vibe.

Repairs included: a fret level/dress, side dots install, saddle-slot recut/mod, new rosewood saddle, new pickguard, cleaning, and setup.

Top wood: solid birch

Back & sides wood: solid birch

Bracing type: ladder

Bridge: rosewood (unoriginal?)

Fretboard: ebonized maple

Neck wood: poplar

Action height at 12th fret: 3/32” bass 1/16” treble (fast, spot-on)
String gauges: 52w, 40w, 30w, 22w, 16, 12 as I recall

Neck shape: medium-bigger C/D

Board radius: flat

Truss rod: non-adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium-low

Scale length: 25 1/8"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

Body width: 15 1/8"

Body depth: 3 3/4"

Weight: 4 lbs 2 oz

Condition notes: it's got some average wear and tear to the finish but is in overall great shape. I didn't do a neck reset on this one but the angle was good enough to leave it as-is, though the saddle height over the bridge is a little low. As far as the bridge goes, I'm pretty sure it's an original Harmony rosewood one that was modified a little bit -- the grain looks right! If not, someone cut a Harmony repro shape and put the original "bridge bolts" back in when replacing it. I'm used to seeing ebonized maple bridge on these, though. Regardless, I modified it to fit a wide, rosewood saddle so I could get better intonation via extra compensation at the saddle. The pickguard, bridge pins, and saddle are replacements. The rest appears original save the nut, maybe?