Luthiery Laboratories

This pretty little thing is a Harmony H617 Bobkat. The H-bodied series of guitars, originally known as the Silhouette, began in 1963 and ended in 1973. This one is from 1972 or 1973. Harmony built a number of guitars for Sears under the Silvertone name, at first as a step up from the Danelectros, and ultimately replacing them. See the Silvertone 1478.

This is a page from the 1973 Harmony catalog. Harmony guitars are known for their DeArmond gold foil pickups, which are highly sought after on the parts market. The tremolo design is also unique: it lifts the entire standard bridge up and places it on a pivot. Klunky, but somehow it works, at least better than Danelectro's design! Another less-than-perfect feature is plastic strap buttons. If you plan to use the thing much, you should replace those with metal ones before something awful happens.

A problem with Harmony guitars is their use of miniature pots and knobs. The pot shafts are small diameter, normal knobs won't fit, and the miniature stock knobs have a tendency to fall off and get lost. When that happens, you'll find out they are irreplaceable. Mine was missing one knob if I remember correctly, so I replaced all of them with matching silvertop bell knobs. Looking at the catalog page, that's not all that far wrong.

To make standard knobs fit on the small shafts, you could fill the holes with epoxy and then re-drill them, or come up with some way to fill the gap. I don't remember exactly, I think I used some silicone tubing for that. At any rate, the knobs are on good and tight, and I don't want to mess with them. Except for the knobs, this Bobkat is in almost perfect condition, which is good, because the only way to get parts for a Harmony is to take them off another one.

For me, Harmony guitars are a lot like Danelectros ... cheap little guitars that are better than they ought to be. I also like the classic understated styling of the Silhouette/Bobkat line, especially compared to a lot of the Japanese imports of the era like Teisco, which are just weird. Sadly, the Harmony company was liquidated in 1977. But, much like Danelectro, Samick bought the Harmony name and re-started it.