1940 Harmony “Rex” H-974 Archtop (w/ Neck Reset)

An early archtop from the Ridgeway line of Harmony instruments that was specially branded for sale through Gretsch

This guitar has a poplar neck with a painted maple fretboard and stenciled fret markers. It still has the original Kluson tuners which still have the large gears before wartime rationing made them thinner. One of the buttons is translucent but they all appear to be of the same vintage so perhaps they mixed and matched. It was wartime after all. The brass frets were lightly levelled and polished to help alleviate some of the divots. The neck is good and straight and has a hair of relief after the fret level. It also has a new unbleached bone nut. The neck has been reset

The body is solid birch finished in a super cool faux flame and dark sunburst lacquer. This is original too which is even cooler. There is one repaired crack by the treble side F hole and an ugly side crack repair attempt by the neck heel. Its not pretty but its stable. Any original bridge has long since crumbled so i made a replica out of walnut using some original Harmony thumbwheels. The “idento” tailpiece was moved a bit towards the treble side for better alignment of the strings