Harmony H47 Stratotone Mercury

Late 50's/early 60's USA made hollowbody guitar. If you haven't held one of these you think it's a solid body, the body is kind of shaped like a Les Paul Jr but it's extremely light because it's just an empty box. Floating wooden bridge like you'd find on an old archtop guitar. Bolt-on neck with nice block inlays. The neck is very thick for an electric. Redburst finish. My specimen is in incredible shape and is very nice to look at.

Single DeArmond "goldfoil" pickup. The electronics deserves some explanation. There is a three-position switch. The "bass" setting is a normal circuit where the volume and tone knobs work as expected. The "treble" is a tone preset which has a little bass cut out and the tone knob does nothing. The "rhythm" setting is a preset which has some treble cut out and the tone knob does nothing.

Think telecaster, but with not quite so much treble. The sound is pretty interesting. Of the three switch settings I play it exclusively on the "treble" setting.

Here's what I would say is it's main weakness: no bridge pickup. If this had another pickup I think it would be an incredible and very versatile guitar. Instead it's an interesting guitar that can't quite pull off a lead sound convincingly in my hands. It's not that far off, maybe 80% of the way there.

I play mostly blues, and my amps are a Valve Jr and a "firefly" 1.5W tube amp that I built myself. I don't have any effects other than a reverb pedal and my amps lack tone stacks, so perhaps with the right pedal you could tweak this guitar's sound to what you want.

The guitar is 50 years old but the only problem I've found is the block inlays are raising up a bit and it could use a refret some day. Harmony built their guitars like tanks.

I'm a big fan of the neck on this guitar. It's nice and thick. Plays great.

My only complaint about the guitar physically is it's a little too light. If you have back problems this guitar is a godsend.

It made it this long, I think it will last forever.

Harmony is gone, but there's a good collectors forum that will help you out.

Really cool looking guitar, sounds good too. But can't quite compete with telecaster. That's my overall opinion.