Overall Grade: B+
For the money ($849), I think its a pretty good guitar that could be a really good guitar with a a few tweaks. Made in Korea, but not sure which factory. It features signature Harmony aesthetics, and a solid build. The faux P-13 pickups (really just tarted up P-90's here) sound a lot better than I thought they would, and offer up great tones from super clean to distorted. I personally don't have a complaint about this guitar, and it compares favorably with similar Korean hollow-bodies that I own from Guild and Epiphone (many of which cost a lot more).
DISCLAIMERS:
1. I am a complete sucker for old Jazzer aesthetics, but
do not play Jazz, Jump Blues, Swing, Roots Rock, etc.
2. I don't know anything about Harmony guitars, vintage or modern, so can't say whether the "vintage" bits on these guitars are period correct, cork-sniffer quality, etc., or whether the body is the correct shape, thickness, whatever.
I actually received this guitar on Sunday, but haven't had a chance to really dig into it until now. This guitar does not ship with a case. Harmony's shipping methods are not for the faint of heart as this thing showed up in a cheap triangle shaped box with minimal packing materials inside. How it did not end up broken in half or smashed to bits is beyond me - +1 for my local Fed-Ex driver.
The guitar is actually well-made, and very solid. Maybe even a bit heavier than expected. It's not 90's Guild heavy, but certainly more substantial feeling than my Stratford 350, and on par with my 00's Epiphone Broadway and ZBD. In fact, I think that's what this guitar reminds me most of -a late 90's / early 00's Korean made Epiphone -at 16" that would probably correlate to a Joe Pass Emperor II (or something similar). Its got a spruce top, a maple body, gloss finish, and cream binding.
Scale length is 25 1.2" with radius of 12". The neck is actually a fairly chunky "C" shape -not baseball bat thick, but pleasantly substantial. Despite my smallish hands, it is actually quite comfortable. Believe it or not, the guitar was setup fairly well (and even mostly in tune!) right out of the box. The rosewood fretboard and "pearloid" block inlays looked fine to me (no issues or flaws that I could see).
I really like the "signature" Harmony aesthetics here; the headstock inlay is a real inlay (not paint), the "lyre" tail piece is very elegant and solid, and the bakelite knobs are awesome looking and feeling. The tortoise shell pickguard and diamond switch "plate" are pretty cool, though removing the protective film was a maddening undertaking. I like the white truss rod cover a lot here, a black one would be too dark.
The pickups are listed as "Harmony Designed" and feature "P13" style covers. They sit on top of several pickup spacers that are screwed into the top. Speaking of, the bridge is bolted to the top as well... It seems like a standard import bridge, and I don't have any complaints. I think some sort bar or wooden bridge would look better, though it might have an effect on tone. The top is parallel braced.
Playing the guitar, my first thoughts were that the pickups reminded me of the Guild Franz PUPS in my Stratford 350, but once I A/B'd this guitar with that one, I could hear the difference, and began to suspect that these were just P-90's with a fancy cover. Comparisons with my USA Casino lent credence to this theory and, once I started adding more and more dirt to my signal, I could hear that distinctive P-90 growl. That's not to say that they weren't "tweaked" by Harmony in some way, but a quick snap of this guitar's innards reveals what looks like a pair of BHK P-90's:
As a result, this guitar sounds very good in the middle and neck positions clean, and great in the middle and bridge positions with any level of dirt, distortion, or fuzz. The middle position is NOT hum-cancelling (a shame), and I haven't really looked to see if these pickups have the usual quick-connects (allowing for easy replacement). But if you were looking for something with that distinctive P-13 sound, you won't find it here.
Of course, there's a reason this guitar is $849, and there were some corners that were cut. Most obvious are the cheap tuners, they don't really much look the part (I would have gone with some open-back Gotohs or Grovers), though they aren't giving me any issues either, so maybe a moot point. The end of the fretboard is squared off in a strange way and, I have to be honest here, I've never seen that before:
It looks unfinished to me, though I guess it isn't really visible when looking directly at the guitar, so something I will just have to learn to live with. I'm used to a gradual taper here, even on my import hollow-bodies, so this one is a bit puzzling. There were a few flaws in the paint job -a small speck of something (metal?) in the clearcoat, and some sloppy sunbursting around the f-hole, but nothing too terrible.
I actually like this guitar quite a bit and will definitely keep it. I don't actually have another big hollowbody with P-90's in it, and I'm not looking for the "P13" sound, so will probably leave the PUPS as-is. I always have a tendency to want to replace tailpieces with Bigsbies (confirmed case of Bigsby-itis here) but have so far resisted when they look this good. My Frequensator-equipped Epi's have escaped Bigsbification thus far, and I suspect that this Harmony will too. I may still opt to change out tuners and replace the bridge, but will need to determine if those mods are worth the time and money. Maybe not.
Lastly, I'm not a huge fan of sunbursts, and think that if Harmony issued this guitar in blonde, black, or dark red, they might have a real winner!
They are only available direct from Harmony:
https://www.harmony.co/products/harmony-h62-reissue-electric-guitar-sunburst
When I initially spoke with their customer service department, they told me that they only had about 40 of them made. That being said, the H72 reissue has been listed at "limited quantities" as well, and that guitar has been out for a few years now. Who knows, but I suspect they order them in batches of 50, a new batch is run when the old one sells out. The promo shots for this guitar are from S/N xxx0004 and mine is xxx0006, so not impossible that there aren't that many to go around. A previous run of blonde H62's (2010?) was very small, and those guitars are fairly hard to come by.
