Here are a couple of my SILVERTONE–badged Harmony guitars

When the original (USA) Harmony Musical Instruments Company was in business, you could order a "run" of guitars with any name you liked on the headstock. This was a common practice among many manufacturers catering to big retail chains - in fact, Harmony had been owned by Sears & Roebuck from 1916 to 1940 - and other guitar makers like Danelectro, Kay and even Gibson offered this "house-brand" labeling for large-quantity orders. You could find virtually the same guitar with several different "brand names" on the headstock – an "Airline" was from Wards, a "Silvertone" was from Sears, "Holiday" came from Aldens, and I believe a "Truetone" was from Western Auto - yup, all the SAME GUITAR. Some of the other "house brand" alternative names were "Old Kraftsman" from Kay, and "Dwight" from Gibson (for Sonny Shields Music in East St Louis, rather rare).

This house-brand-labeling practice was in place during the great guitar explosion of the sixties, and as the boom continued into the seventies, to keep up with the demand for guitars the department stores turned to the import market. This allowed many of the Pacific rim guitar manufacturers to make in-roads into the American guitar market, and this in turn eventually killed off the domestic "little guys" - so that by the mid-seventies, most, if not all, of the Sears-sold "Silvertones" were built by Tiesco, Kawai, and other Far East manufacturers, and Harmony USA closed it doors. There's a pretty good "telling of the tale" on Broadway Music's Harmony USA webpage.

The rights to use the name brand "Harmony" were obtained by an importer, and that's why you still see new "Harmony" guitars being sold today - but none of them are being manufactured in the US, and this new "Harmony" has NO AFFILIATION with the old Harmony factory. The tip-off for the novice is, if the label/logo includes the phrase "established in 1896," it's NOT a vintage Harmony - it's one of the new imports.

The "department-store guitar" may have passed into antiquity, but you still see house-brand-labeling today, as in the "Rogue" line (for Musician’s Friend) and "Bradley" (for American Music Supply) brands. Sam Ashe has his own in-house label, "Carlo Robelli."

Oh yeah, back to these guys... both of these guitars were produced in the mid-sixties by Harmony for sales in Sears stores, under the name brand "Silvertone."

The guitar on the left is a 1965 Silvertone 1477 (but without vibrato), a Harmony H15 "Bobkat" (including the misspelling) built for Sears. This low-end guitar has no frills or fancy inlay, and has the standard (non-vibrato) tailpiece - although you do find these with the vibrato unit as well (as shown in the 1967 catalog, below). The DeArmonds are the older "diamond top" models with no visible/adjustable pole pieces, and it definitely has that great "rock-a-billy" tone. The H15’s I've owned were all positively the lightest electric guitars I have ever played, and this picture is deceiving - it's a lot smaller than the H19 on the right (check the two pictures, this time considering the guitars have the same the scale length and that the H15 is comparitively "enlarged" for this page). Although it is a small instrument in overall size, these guitars both sport a full 24 inch scale - they are NOT "3/4" sized. This is the third example of this model that I’ve had (don’t ask why!), and the third different brand-name I’ve had on the headstock.

At the other end of the product line, on the right is a Silvertone 1478, essentially a Harmony H19 "Silhouette" model, built for Sears. The body shape ("silhouette?") obviously seems to have been copied from the Fender Jazzmaster/Jaguar guitars introduced in the late fifties/early sixties. The nice inlay work sez it’s one of the top of the line models. What's unusual about the Sears models of this guitar is that all the Harmony-logo "Silhouette" models I've seen have the pickups slanted - closer to the bridge on the treble side, like the bridge pup on a Strat. On all the Silvertone examples that I have seen, the pups are straight across, parallel to the bridge - and, I have only seen them this way on models with the Silvertone logo.

Now for the bad news: when I obtained this guitar, the original neck pickup (the pickup set was identical to those on the Bobkat) was not working. I did the horrible offense of replacing them both with two of the better (IMHO - but still period-correct, if you will) DeArmond Golden Tone pickups with the adjustable pole pieces (commonly called the Mustache pickup). I also replaced the missing vibrato arm with something I cobbled together from a Fender Strat arm. Sacrilege? Hey, my axes aren't display-case artifacts, I PLAY 'EM!

I have seen both of these guitars mistakenly called the "Hornet" model. The "Hornet" actually was a similar-looking guitar produced by Danelectro for Sears which was also sold under the Silvertone house-brand label. Although the Danos also featured a Fender-style body shape, they were of completely different construction, including the easily identifiable "lipstick" pickups that Danos are famous for.

Here's a link to a nice "unofficial" Harmony database page that has tons of info about Harmony guitars, and scans of catalogs.

Below is a scan of the page of the 1967 Sears catalog that was previously available on Ceejay's Silvertone appreciation pages (used with her permission, of course). Tragically, I understand that her pages were "killed" by spammers, spambots, and other scum on the Internet in December of 2007, and it's a shame and a real loss to those of us who enjoyed them.

Why do these guitars appeal to me, with some big $$$ axes sitting in the rack right next to them? I can only tell you, there's just something about them... Maybe it's the vibe, man. Perhaps it's because the sixties was when I picked up my first guitar. I learned "Wipe Out!" and "Walk, Don't Run" before I learned "Twist and Shout" and "Heart of Stone." I remember those days when the Sears catalog was truly a "wish book" - and the first REAL electric bass I ever played (it belonged to a friend of my brother) was one of the dolphin-head Danelectro-built Silvertones. The first amp I ever bought was one of the Silvertone "hideaway head" 212 models. All in the same catalog as these...

I suppose it's all that, and those great sounding DeArmond pickups. Yeah, yeah, yeah, these guitars also have the some of the BIGGEST necks you've ever seen (like a Gibson '50s profile), but they're not difficult to play, if well set-up - just a little different...

I guess to me they are simply great and AFFORDABLE vintage-vibe beaters that I don't have to worry about getting dings in, or getting ripped off!
Well, Ok, it WOULD bother me if they got ripped off...

Be sure and check out my 1967 Harmony Rocket, too!