The Harmony Company of Illinois, United States, manufactured a wide variety of musical instruments which were popular during most of the 20th century. This article is devoted to documenting these instruments.
Contents
Numbering convention
Harmony's model numbers consisted of an 'H' followed by a 2 to 4 digit number. The 'H' stood for the name of the company.
Model and date stamps
Harmony hollow-body instruments were marked with inkstamps within the body of the instrument. A model/batch number of the form nnnnHmmmm where 'nnnn' is a batch number and 'mmmm' is a model number ('6072H950' for example would be an H950 model). They were also stamped with a date stamp with the season and two-digit year ('F-45' would indicate the instrument was manufactured in the fall of 1945). Only 'F-xx' and 'S-xx' are found as date stamps, S could be summer, perhaps Harmony synchronized its orders with the main catalog distributors (as Sears & Roebuck, Montgomery Wards). A former Harmony employee reported a different scheme: "We worked 10 hours, 5 days a week, any 8 more every Saturday. That was both shifts. I believe the "F" and "S" on the serial numbers was for first or second shift."
OEM models
Harmony was also an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for several other brands, most notably Silvertone. OEM models were typically very similar to a Harmony instrument but with cosmetic differences.
Pickups for almost all Harmony electric guitars and basses were manufactured by Rowe Industries/Rowe DeArmond in Toledo, Ohio, from the mid 1940s until the closure of Harmony in the mid 1970s. See entry for Harry DeArmond.