1942 Harmony H917 w/ Oscar Schmidt Stella Neck

A super fun piece of guitar history! This is a Harmony-made all birch ladder-braced guitar with an Oscar-Schmidt made neck and headstock (with the wonderful Stella logo). Harmony acquired Oscar-Schmidt in the late 1930s and evidently used existing old Oscar-Schmidt stock to construct guitars. Jake Wildwood has a nice blog post about these guitars (search "Jake Wildwood C.1942 HARMONY H917 STELLA PARLOR GUITAR" to find the post).

The guitar has an S42 stamp, indicating a Spring 1942 manufacturing date for the body (with the neck obviously several years older). The guitar is in good condition with modest/honest finish wear (one larger area of wear near the sound-hole is shown in the photos).

The guitar is all solid birch with ladder bracing. The slotted headstock tuning machines are high quality "Golden Age" reproductions sold by Stew Mac. Everything else on the guitar appears to be original.

Action is 5mm (3/16") on both the low and high E strings. While there is only minimal separation between the heel and the body, in my view, this guitar would benefit from a neck reset. It is strung with light gauge (47/12) Martin Marquis Silked strings. While playable as-is, it has the potential to really smoke as a country blues fingerstyle machine with a professional neck reset.

Guitar will ship with original (and heavily worn) Protex case.

Like my other listing, this was also a thrift shop find. While I had hoped to complete the restoration myself, after several years it is best to accept reality and let this guitar find an owner who will love and play it.

The guitar is sold "as is". Please ask me questions and I will do my best to answer them as carefully as possible. I am not a professional retailer. While I will do my best to respond promptly, on occasion I may be unable to do so.