1942 Harmony Gene Autry Melody Ranch Parlor Guitar

I like these cute old Harmony Gene Autry boxes -- this one has a '42 date stamp so it's on the earlier side for this odel -- they have charm, looks, and a woody, chunky, clunky sound that records nicely. They're not stunners in any of their performance aspects but, like I said, the charm goes a long way!

Work on this one included a neck reset and bridge reglue (Ancel) and a new nut, saddle, bridge pins, level/dress of the frets, seam work, and setup work (Tim). It's now playing bang-on and ready to serve.

Unlike the vast majority of Harmony guitars of this body size and general nature, this one is built of nicer materials. It has a solid spruce top, maple back and sides, a poplar neck, and (originally) an ebonized maple bridge (we always replace these -- in this case with ebony) and ebonized maple (or similar) fretboard. The binding is real rather than painted, too. Under the hood it's ladder-braced and plain-Jane as you'd expect for a Harmony.