1930s Marwin Jewel (Harmony) Archtop Guitar

This Harmony-made Marwin Jewel is a pretty slick-looking beastie. It has fancy trim around the top edge and a killer, rhinestone-encrusted, celluloid veneer at the headstock. Aside from that, though, it's otherwise a pretty typical mid-grade Harmony archtop from the same time and features press-arched top and back. The top is solid spruce while the back and sides are solid birch. It has a poplar neck and rosewood fretboard.

It's a customer's instrument and I have a feeling it will be going home with the owner as he's, strangely, a fan of old Marwin-branded Harmony products. Don't ask me -- I just work here!

That said, a ton of work went into getting this one going. I reset the neck, added a 1/2" dowel that runs through the middle of the guitar and bridges neckblock to endblock (it's pinned at the endblock) for added stiffness (the endblock area had some sag at its edges from years of slow collapse into the top -- now repaired), repaired a number of hairline cracks on the top and back (lots of cleats), repaired a mix of open seams and loose binding/purfling on the lower bout, fit a new rosewood bridge, and set it up. I also pulled the old frets, put in newer tall stock, and had Molly level and dress the previous upbow out of the frets.

All this work done, it's now a spot-on player and its woody, punchy, midsy sound is easy to enjoy for use in whatever vintagey music you could want to use it in -- trad jazz, old blues and country blues, swing, singer-songwriter nonsense -- it's definitely got its own voice and will suit all sorts of "old" sounds.