That one on the right is what I learned on. We had a great copy, and it was the couch guitar in our house for many years. We've got one now, but the tailpiece eats strings and nobody feels much like fixing it. (Other playing options abound).Well, I certainly did, and in more ways than one. As I just said to horax above, the first guitar I ever plunked around on was my Dad's Stella by Harmony 1961 H929. Dad was a Harmony brand guy, even before I was born. A pic I have of him in the late '40s playing guitar (with his twin brother on mandolin) shows him playing a Supertone branded parlor guitar (made by Harmony factory in Chicago) known as "The Prep."
I don't remember specific guitars of Dad's from the '50s (I was born in '53), but my first recollection of a specific guitar model of Dad's was that Stella. We were living in Puerto Rico then, and Dad's H929 had the white pickguard that was screwed onto the top of the guitar, which, from what I've read and seen, was first a feature in 1961. We moved back to Texas in '63, so I know Dad's Stella was from the very early '60s, most probably 1961.
I was about 10 when I first played around with that H929, but it took a few more years (1967) before I seriously knuckled down and started learning to play. By that time Dad had a Harmony Archtone H1213. A few months later, after I had proved to Dad that I was serious about playing, he bought a Harmony Silhouette H19 used for me and my younger brother to play. Because they were Dad's guitars, and because my kid brother wanted to play, too, those guitars didn't go with me when I left my father's home. I wish I had them today, but I've in recent years picked up a couple of Harmony guitars of old ('53 Broadway H954 archtop, left, and H165, ca. 1967, right).
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