1970 Harmony H1260 Sovereign Jumbo Guitar

This is exactly what I picture in my mind when someone says "Harmony Sovereign." It's got a warm, woody, airy sound to its voice that's like an alternate-dimension Gibson in vibe. The neck is fatter and familiar to folks who enjoy '50s-style guitars, and it's big at a little over 16" on the lower bout. This particular guitar suits flatpicking and fingerpicking, both, but seems to enjoy flatpicked backup-strumming best.

I picked this one up from my friend Kevin in a group of Harmony boxes after he closed-up his guitar shop "Guitar Sam" (previously: Play It Again Sam) in Montpelier (VT dialect: mont-peel-ee-ehr) earlier this year. Ancel and I tag-teamed the repair work on it and it's ready to go and playing dandy.

Bonus points to the ridiculous amount of "bearclaw" figure in the spruce of the top!

Repairs included: a neck reset, fret level/dress, new bone saddle, cleaning, and setup.

Weight: 4 lbs 4 oz

Scale length: 25 1/8"

Nut width: 1 3/4"

Neck shape: medium-full C/D

Board radius: f10"

Body width: 16 1/8"

Body depth: 4 1/4"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back & sides wood: solid mahoany

Bracing type: ladder

Bridge: rosewood

Fretboard: rosewood

Neck wood: mahogany

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

Truss rod: adjustable

Neck relief: straight

Fret style: medium/lower

Condition notes: it's in good health and all-original save the new saddle and saddle-slot recut (Harmony never put these in the right place). There's a little finish muck around the heel from an earlier attempted neck reset job, I'd guess. There are a few tiny little scuff/hairline cracks on the bass side of the instrument but they're all covered by the kerfing so they're no issue. The finish itself has lacquer checking throughout and there's a medium amount of usewear/handling wear throughout via small nicks and dings and scratches as well. Overall it looks good, though! The fretboard extension does dip down a little over the body post-reset. I let them drop on these for the most part because the tops on these like to swell up/down in the summer and most folks are not doing acrobatics up there anyhow. It plays as-normal up to 15/16.

It comes with: no case, sorry.

Consignor tag: JW