❌SOLD❌ Espanada H63 Archtop Electric by Harmony, Black, 1960

The Espanada H63, a full size hollowbody archtop electric, was built by Harmony from 1955 until 1964 and during the 1950s carried distinctive ‘Harmometal’ aluminum binding.

At its peak, Harmony – based in Chicago, Illinois – was the largest musical instrument builder in the USA, which by default made them the largest in the world. They produced instruments of all types for many resellers, and used many brand names like Stella and Silvertone, depending on who the buyer was.

The Espanada H63 from 1960 is a full bodied, single cutaway archtop with a pair of Gibson P13 pickups, Waverly tuners, and a compensated tailpiece. On this example, the bridge is an aluminum model often supplied by Bigsby for use with their vibrato tailpieces. The 3.5 inch deep body is a mix of Spruce laminate for the top and Maple laminate for the sides and back, with Maple neck and bound Rosewood fingerboard; unfortunately a short section of the plastic fingerboard binding is missing on the treble side, from the nut almost to the 2nd fret. In 1956, the neck received an adjustable truss rod, and in 1958, the ‘Harmometal’ aluminum body binding was replaced with more traditional white or creme plastic binding.    The fingerboard and fret wear shows that this guitar has been used as intended, and played regularly;  there’s still a fair amount of fret left and it plays well.  Unfortunately the original pickguard is long gone.  

The pickups on this Espanada H63 were actually made for Gibson in the very early 1940’s as the P-13. Gibson made these to replace the Charlie Christian pickup, and it appears on some models like the 1940 to 1942 ES-125 and ES-150. Shortly after that, though, the P-90 was introduced, the P-13 was discontinued, and the remaining stock of P-13s was sold to Harmony. They are valued by Jazz, swing and jump blues players for their warmly overdriven tone.

This guitar is in good working order, and has a definitely vintage sound!

A grey Tric case is included.