The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #77128   Message #1372665
Posted By: Songster Bob
05-Jan-05 - 09:47 PM
Thread Name: Tech: IDing a Tenor Guitar
Subject: RE: Tech: IDing a Tenor Guitar
Well, the label shows that it's late enough to have a ZIP code on the label. The "1902" is one of those mystery numbers Harmony used to confuse people (like their serial numbering "system," which may have been consistent, but reveals little about the age of the instrument in question).

I'm surprised Harmony was still making tenor guitars that late. Tenor guitars were invented to get extra work for tenor banjo players, when the music changed so that banjos were out-of-place.

I have a Harmony archtop tenor guitar (I figure it's older by 20-30 years than your flat-top one) that I sloppily configured as an octave mandolin (mandolin tuners, loop-end guitar strings, double the bridge and nut slots). It's fun, but no great shakes. It'd be an interesting addition to some acoustic mixes, sort of like a bouzouki in Irish music (not all that traditional, that).

Bob