Harmony H950 Monterey

Dated 1959. Top, back, and sides are solid birch. Top is arched, not carved. Thick, C-shaped neck. Small frets. Black with red tiger sunburst. Stained or ebonized fretboard (maple?).

This is a very common model.

The birch gives it a very mellow sound. Not as loud or bright as my spruce-topped H1327.

The sound is not impressive to be honest. It's fine for strumming but just sounds a little dull. But it sounds very nice when played with a slide. I use semi flat nickel strings, perhaps bronze strings would sound better.

It does occasionally have a buzz now and then, I think one of the tone bars needs some work. Usually this only happens immediately after changing tunings, after settling for a few hours it's gone.

I added a neck-mounted humbucker pickup (one of the $15 "jazz" pickups off ebay). Sounds amazing plugged in.

Construction is very sturdy. The frets are of the small variety but they're big enough to not be a problem. The non-rosewood fretboard isn't very nice but it does the job.

The action is fine. Could use a neck reset some day but with the bridge all the way down and light strings (12's) it's playable.

The finish is just painted on. It's scratched and chipped in places over the years, but it's a durable finish and birch it tough stuff, you'd really have to do something stupid to damage it.

There are no obvious assembly flaws.

It's made it this long, I'm not too worried about it. Holds a tuning forever, really not much to complain about here.

Harmony is gone, sadly. I'm not sure it would still be under warranty :).

This is an ok guitar, though in my opinion a spruce top sounds much better. It definitely has it's place though.

Oh, and these are a big ugly. But if you really like red and black it's the one for you!