I'm restoring my dad's old Harmony H625, specifically replacing the bridge. The luthier I took it to (Todd down at Capital City Guitars in Olympia) said the original bridge was set so far out of the fretboard's scale he didn't feel confident working on it--if he put the new bridge where the old bridge was, the intonation would be faulty, and if he fudged and put in an extra-wide bridge, there'd be so much distance between the pegs and the saddle the strings would probably buzz.

The scale problem is proved by measurement: even with compensation, the saddle needs to be about 1/4" closer to the nut than its original location.

Is this a common problem with Harmony guitars, or the H625?