all-original 1943 Harmony Melody Ranch Gene Autry parlor acoustic vintage western cowboy guitar, parlour

We'd better do some research on the great Gene Autry 🙂 This is part of American history! It's a guy loved by the children of the 40s-50s-60s, who used to play in western movies, and sing cowboy songs for kids on TV back then.

Reason for saying it's a 1943 is the fact that there's an "S43" stamped inside the sound hole which, after documenting a little, I found out it means summer of '43. And if I still remember well enough, the gentleman who played it before me had been the original owner, he'd been 76 at that time (about 10 years ago), and he told me he first got it when he was about 10 years old.

No issues, no neck resets during its life, and as usually with these, the owner would learn to play the guitar, as a consequence the frets were numbered, but I'd taken those off by sanding the board just a little, after which I oiled it.

Bone nut, saddle & pins. But I'm thinking about reverting back to an ebony nut. The original one was made of wood, not sure which species, and I didn't receive it with the guitar anyway.

Of course I had to sand down much of the saddle & level those frets, to get it to a super-playable condition of 1.5mm (2/32") string height, which is phenomenal! I also had to fix the intonation the best I could (check out the B-string on the saddle, in a pic somewhere at the middle, also check out the fact that I had to offset the bridge just a little - time obviously took a toll on the whole wood of the guitar).

Comes with an original period-correct case as shown.

Fun fact: old reminiscent of the old original strap (red rope) right there 🙂

PLUS: Les Paul used to own one of these too!