Harmony H47 Stratotone Mercury Vintage Guitar w/ DeArmond Gold Foil

Up for sale from my private collection is a 1965 Harmony Stratotone Mercury H47 in excellent, original condition and in perfect working order. This vintage USA-made Harmony is a rare Stratotone model with a gloss Red Sunburst nitro lacquer finish, batwing pickguard, and singular neck position DeArmond Gold Foil pickup.

The maple body is fully hollow, with the articulate note attack of this particular tonewood balanced by the tonal breadth and sweet, airy quality of the hollowbody construction. The DeArmond Gold Foil pickup in the neck position has strong output and a clear, percussive quality. Dynamic and barking with an overdriven amp, the pickup has a chewy warmth and woody bite. The rotary Tone switch coupled to the pickup has three settings: "Bass" offers the traditional use of the Volume and Tone knobs, "Treble" bypasses the Tone control (only the Volume knob is active), and "Rhythm" is the same as the Treble setting, but with a high pass filter (even more treble!). The instrument is featherweight at 4lbs 14oz, professionally setup in house at Hammett Guitar Co. with 11-54 roundwound strings and low action.

The maple neck has a substantial baseball bat C-shaped profile carve with generous shoulder and even a hair more heft than most Harmony necks of the era, measuring .925" deep at the 1st fret and .955" at the 12th. The bound Brazilian rosewood fretboard retains the original slender frets which have been leveled and crowned in the guitar's lifetime, showing no wear and playing cleanly up the 24 1/4" scale.

The guitar has had a fresh refret along with a new crafted bone nut (original retained) which measures a full 1 3/4" in width. On the headstock, the guitar has had a fresh set of Kluson closed-back tuners to keep it nicely at pitch with the original set of Kluson Deluxe double line strip tuners with white buttons retained inside the case, and the Stratotone silkscreen with atomic music note logo is present.

The electronics function perfectly as intended, with the original Rowe Industries (the parent company of DeArmond) sticker on the underside of the pickup. The original floating Brazilian rosewood bridge and short trapeze tailpiece are intact, and the original trio of 'cupcake' knobs are present. The silkscreened text on the pickguard is flawless, and removing the pickguard reveals the 1965 date stamp on the body and a notable tan line where the top finish has aged to a more orange-ish shade over the decades (the back remains a vibrant, unfaded red).

The Red Sunburst gloss finish is 100% original with no touchup or overspray, exhibiting light buckle rash central to the back, and and a few additional finish scratches and minor marks on the body as a whole, also largely relegated to the back.

The original case completes this guitar and is in perfect working order.

Local pickup is most welcomed.

I have spent many years collecting perfect examples of vintage USA made guitars and this is from my personal collection. You wont find a better, more complete, functioning and playable example.

This is the model made famous by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.