Harmony 1213 Archtone

1967 1213 Acoustic Arctop Guitar. This was a beginner guitar I purchase new for $50 with case. Made in USA of solid wood. The head piece says "Steel reinforce Neck" but there is no access to adjust the truss rod. Fortunatly the neck is still straight with good action. The fingerboard is painted dark brown to match the sunburst finish. Wear spots on the finger board show that it is made of a light a colored wood. the neck is thicker than other guitars that I have played. The bridge has adjusting screws for string height.

It has a bright sound. Good midrange, not much bass volume. from what I have read this is how archtops were designed to sound.

I purchased this guitar because of the action. The strings are right down next to the neck and don't buzz. It played much better than the flat top in the store that cost twice as much.

The tuners have become very hard to turn. Other than that it is still in good shape.

Never tried. I think the company is out of business.

I purchased this guitar in 1967 to play folk music. I didn't like the guitar then because because folkies play flat top guitars and this was definatly the dorkey beginner guitar. I didn't play it very long and it has spent years in a closet. Just started playing again. Works fine for me now.

my harmony has not been dated. There is a serial and model number so I know that it is a 1213, made in the 60's. Other's have specified the specs on this guitar. It is in generally exellent condition and the original owner had installed a cheap pickup near to the bridge. It was installed poorly and I had to take it to my local giutar tech and he reinstalled the pickup and placed a ring around the pickup to hide the flaws. The finish is sunburst and it has mellowed well over the years. It has a few dings but overall is in outstanding condition.
It has the original tuners, bridge, and tailpiece.

I had to have the guitar set up and got it back recently. The sound is really cool, warm but bright. Amplified it sounds totally old school, just like us older players remember when we all got our first guitars, (My was a kay, then a silvertone electric).

The factory setup is unknown. The pickup is cheap. The top is painted but very cool. Flaws are few considering the age, original build quality, and relatively minor wear.

It's lasted this long, I hoping it will last at least as long as I do.

Who knows

I've been playing since 1965. I have a mexican deluxe floyd rose 70's strat, an epiphone les paul custom, an ibanez ag 85 jazzbox, and a 72 Martin d35. I have a fender champion 30, a roland vga5, and a 70's Kasino amp with 8 10" inch speakers. I'm getting ready to order a rickenbacker 330 12 string soon. When I was 13 I got a new Fender jaquar and a vibrolux reverb amp. The day I graduated college (1977) I sold both to the local music store because i did'nt know where my next dollar was coming from. Probably the dumbest thing i ever did.

Year: I dunno, was told 1962 by the guy that gave it to me.
Frets: 14 to the edge of the body, 19 total.
Solid or laminated top: It's solid spruce, I know this for a fact, I had it apart.
Woods: The body is solid spruce and honestly, quite well constructed (take a flashlight and look inside guys. The neck is made of a light walnut underneath all that paint and the fingerboard is rosewood (again, underneath all that paint......scrape the neck guys, you'll love me for the suggestion after you do).
Finish: My hand laid satin finish....it had to be done, details in a sec.
Bridge: A Gibson gold plated unit from a LP and a hand made Cocobolo wood base, works well. I also put a Gibson gold plated tailpiece on it...from one of those old BBKing specials (I happened to have a broken one that *may* get the tailpiece back someday).
Tuners: An old set of Austin gold plated, kinda nice 3x2 tuners I had laying about.
Neck: Wide, but thinned a bit in the thickness and soft sanded finish with 1500 grit sandpaper over the satin finish I've put on the rest of the guitar.
Case: I bought a Gibson top notch hardshell at Guitar Center for 50$, it had a few blemishes I fixed....good as new now.

Bluesy....it sounds sickly sweet and blue.
It's a bit muted in the volumne department, but I can deal with that.
The bridge and tailpiece (and possibly the neck resetting and finish) have made this thing sound a TON brighter, if you like to tweak yer guitfiddle, I recommend the upgrade, highly.
Bass comes thru clean and punchy, the highs are softer but clean and ringing.

Setup: I have no idea how this guitar originally played.
I was given it by a buddy, the neck was broken off completely and it was also broken in two.
It was him daring my skills (I'm a mechanic (30 years now)and craftsman sort of guy), who was I not to take the challenge ? :)
After I dug into the thing I noticed the quality in the build, but man! what a junk finish it had on everything. It felt like the fingerboard was hewn with an axe it was so rough, and then the fingerboard was painted on top?????
That had to go.
I broke out the fancy stuff for this one, my way of saying "You lose" to my buddy in the best of intentions. I reset the neck (after piecing it back together) and got the chance to mate it to the body AND top correctly. Not knowing how it was originally, but just holding the chunks together, I have to assume I did a major overhaul in the way the neck and body were joined, you cannot see any gaps or contour mismatches all the way to the tip of the keyboard. My buddy now wants his guitar back.....in the worst way :) It's kinda funny really.

Reliability: ? I have no idea.....I'll let you know.

Customer support?

Playing: Eh, 30 years or so ? Yes, I have a few other guitars.
If it was stolen: My advice, don't touch it, the wrath of god will seem trivial if you do.
I've had better guitars, but this one is personal, I've spent way too many hours on it now.

My Archtone is approximately early to mid-60s. There is no serial number or other identifying number anywhere on the guitar, but it looks like the others reviewed: silscreen Harmony in white, red "G" clef below which is "Made in USA" and "Steel Reinforced Neck" in white. Mine is as described, solid wood body, thickish neck, three-on-a-side tuners, painted on sunburst and binding. I purchesded mine from an antique store for $110 and paid more than I should have, but I have an affintiy for old American made guitars. When ppurchased, my Archtone was in "collectable" condition, two rusty strings, no pick guard, tuners that wouldn't work, etc. Since I planned to convert it to left-handed, I didn't really care.

With the help of the good folks at Broadway Music, I was able to easily convert my Archtone to a lefty with a new lefty pick guard, nut, bridge, and a set of new tuners. I filled in the old pick guard scew holes, repainted the "binding" in a slightly faded white to match the existing paint, pput on the new items and, yahoo, I have a lefty Archtone.

Asd with the other guitars reviewed, I strung my newly converted Archone with lightish bronze strings. The neck seems rock solid and luckily is playably straight. Had the neck been bowed I wouldn't have paid the $100 for it nor would I have put any extra money into it.

There is a 3" crack now on the lower bout and some top scuffing. The end pin was broken off. The crack is a character crack that doesn't effect the sound and isn't open. With a new white end pin and matching strap button, my Archtone is ready for play, standing or sitting.

It resides an an extra dreadnaught-size chipbaord case I had sitting around.

I would habv

The other reviewer captered the tone exactly: mid-rangey and dry. If you've ever heard any of the old records of Django Reinhardt, that's what my Archtone sounds like. The jazz flavor is there in a muted way. There is no deep bass or stinging high end. This guitar is a rhythmn guitar to my ear.

It's a guitar I use mostly to figure things out. It doesn't have the volume to an acoustic gig, but it is a nice no-worry, knockabout instrument.

WHn i bought mine, it had been almsot four decades since original setup, so who knows.

My action, with little adjustment, is playable up the neck. The neck is loggish, so it's not guitar I'd want to lay all night.

It's a slightly beat up old guitar. It ain't pretty, but it's pretty good.

Again, I don't consider my Archtone a gig-worthy instrument, simply becasue of the sound limitations. Will it last and last and last? Sure. It has already. It's an American made, every man's, workhorse acoustic jazz guitar.

It's always in tune, the neck ain't movin', and there are plenty of stories buried in the dry and cracking wood of this old beast.

I've been playing close to 30 years and have owned lots of guitars. My first electric guitar was a Harmony, so I have a built in affintiy towards the brand. They ain't great, but they represent an era in America when every kid wanted a guitar and many of us changed our lives forever when we finally got one.

Old Harmony's in great shape should go to right handers. But any Harmony that has been "altered" ot is missing pieces, is fair game for a lefty conversion I figure. I'd love to own a Patrician and a Colorma some day.

I got a 1964 Harmony 1213 guitar (3864H1213) s/n H-53-T. This is a
cheap archtop has "F" holes. Head stock says Harmony(white), has a "G" cleft and made in USA(red). Has a brown/tan "sunburst" top sides and back. I picked it up in a pawn shop for $50. I had the neck reset and put 9 gauge "half flat" strings on it. The neck is slightly seperated from the body at the heel but the fix I had done on it made the string height good and there is no fret buzz. I replaced the bridge with another adjustable bridge that I pieced together and it looks good. The guitar has a few dents but plays and sounds really nice. I had the frets refinished and the fretboard has wear spots (the stain on the fretboard is worn down,due to many years of playing, to the base wood in some positions on the fretboard which appears to be stained maple). Has a brown colored pick guard with brown "swirls" and has the "Harmony" (white)painted on(the Harmony trademark is a cool script with a long stripe at the end of the H which stretches over the top of the other letters). The neck has no truss rod and is somewhat thick but is straight and not warped or twisted . Has three in a row tuners on each side of the head with white plastic knobs (the D string tuner is slightly bent but still works great). Die stamped saddle. Strap button at end of body.

This instrument is not particularly loud but has a nice mellow tone, not twangy or bright. 14 frets from head to body,19 frets total length. Round plastic position markers on neck on fretboard at positions 5,7,9,12 (no marks on side of neck). The sound is different than a flat top, more mellow.

This guitar is 37 years old. I got the original case too (beat up piece of junk but it kept the guitar fairly well protected and in pretty good shape). The action is fairly smooth but it takes a few minutes of playing to get used to the fat neck. The underside of the neck is smooth, not worn and not dented and is also a "two tone" brown/tan color combination. It stays in tune ok but because of the sound it is kind of hard to tune because the sound of the strings is somewhat different tone than a usual flat top.

This guitar is old school. I think it was worth the $50 I spent (and another $50 to get it in playing shape with adjustment/ bridge). I was thinking of putting a pickup on it but I think I will just leave it as it is now. I play easy smooth jazz and chords although it has a fast enough neck with string spacing good enough to play fast jazz licks and arpeggios between the chords. It isnt loud. Appears to be made out of laminated birch or someting but appears to be finished to make cheap wood look like spruce or something.

Haven't had to deal with Harmony. If you have a broken guitar call "The Guitar Doctor" in Whitman MA. He will make it like new.

I am happy with this instrument. I play it every day for a while. I have been playing (off and on) for 30 years and my main guitars are Mexican Strat,Epiphone Broadway and Emperor,Aria N-25, Ibenez... several others both electric and acoustic. This is no collectors item but it is a cool old cheap-o guitar that still plays and sounds good . I think the old Harmony advertisements said it well "Because it sounds so good".

Acoustic archtop, made in 1965. Solid top & back, seems to be made of birch. Don't know about the sides, might be laminated. 14 frets clear of the body, height-adjustable wooden bridge, stamped metal tailpiece. Crappy three-on-a-strip tuners. Huge treetrunk neck.
Bare, as far as features go, but what else do you want on an acoustic archtop?

Sounds very dry and midrangey, not particularly loud.
Sounded AWFUL with .12 bronze strings, sounds pretty good (for a cheapo Harmony archtop) with flatwound .13s.

Cheapo red-to-black "sunburst" finish, painted-on binding...in other words, cheap.

Still, what can you get that's made like this today, and still cheap?

This thing is old and dry and the wood will crack if you look at it funny. Already fixed a few cracks in it, and expect more to appear if the guitar isn't kept in a properly humid environment.

The neck has no trussrod but it's straight as an arrow.

Haha. Good one.

I've been playing for about 20 years, and have had all kinds of guitars over that time, from cheap to luxurious. I love cheap archtops like Kay and Harmony. As far as cheap Harmony archtops go, this one sounds and plays great. I'm eventually going to screw a DeArmond pickup into the top and make it into an electric.