I recently received two guitars as gifts and am trying to learn more about them. The first is a Harmony I believe is from the early ’70s. Its serial number is 6326H6365 and the label is also printed with “B1172.” The second is what I believe is a Goya-made Greco GR1 from the late ’60s with serial number 00215.
I’d like to know where they were made, their woods, a model name or number for Harmony, more-specific dating (from the number), and any other interesting details. – Jonathan Grand
The Harmony is a Folk H6365 in grand-concert size. This almost certainly has a solid spruce top with mahogany back and sides. The fretboard is rosewood, and the rosette should be a decal, not real inlay. The H6365 was made from 1972 to ’73/’74, but had a much older pedigree.
Harmony almost always dated its guitars with a rubber stamp, but the scheme was inconsistent. Yours is B1172, which probably indicates the model’s debut year (1972, definitely not 1911). It could be either February (B) or November (11), take your pick. The numbers before H6365 (6326) are an internal batch indication.
Harmony of Chicago was purchased to be a subsidiary of Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1916, to meet demand for ukuleles following the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, which ignited a rage for Hawaiian music. Sears divested itself of Harmony in 1940, and few guitars were made during World War II. Guitar production recommenced in 1948, and Harmony continued to produce Sears’ Silvertone guitars as a subcontractor, and also sold its own Harmony guitars separately.
Among Harmony’s first guitars in ’48 was the No. 165GC, the grandpappy of this guitar, differing only in that it had a mahogany top and a “pinless” bridge, where the string rollers fit into a groove at the back of the bridge. In ’58, it became the No. 165 with no significant changes, and in ’72 the 165 became your H6365, with the spruce top and the pin bridge. The H6365 is absent from the ’74 catalog and Harmony went bust in ’76.
The Goya Greco GR1 has a complicated history. A classical guitar with a solid spruce top (probably European), brown-stained maple back and sides, and a rosewood-stained hardwood fretboard. The GR1 was available at least by 1965 and was not offered in ’70. We can’t pin it down any closer than that.
Goya was created in the mid ’50s by New York City music distributor Hershman Musical Instrument Company to be put on a line of acoustic guitars made by the Levin company in Sweden, to meet the demand of the burgeoning folk-music scene. In 1963, Hershman spun off the Levin-made guitars into the subsidiary Goya Musical Instrument Corporation.
By ’65, the Folk Boom was in high gear and, to increase the supply of guitars, Levin began outsourcing production to workshops in Germany and Yugoslavia. Whether Levin owned these factories or was subcontracting is unknown. Guitars made by these suppliers were branded Greco rather than Goya. The GR1 was likely from a Yugoslavian factory.
What confuses this story is that Hershman/Goya began importing Goya electric guitars from Hagstrom around 1958 and by 1960 or ’61 had changed to importing Greco electrics from Kanda Shokai in Japan – copies of Swedish Hagstrom and Italian Eko designs made by FujiGen Gakki, Matsumoku, and Teisco. Greco acoustics were always European.
In 1966, Avnet Inc. purchased Guild guitars, and in ’68, Avnet/Guild purchased Goya and Levin. In ’69, they were sold to Kansas-based Kustom Guitars, and in ’74 the whole kit and kaboodle went to Martin Guitars, but yours is one of the original Hershman/Goya/Levin/Croatia run from the mid ’60s. – Michael Wright
A former guitar student who I hadn’t seen in 20 years and is now 91 years old recently gifted two guitars to me. One is a ’60s Barclay electric, but despite doing a fair amount of research and asking several vintage dealers, the other is a mystery. The label inside reads “Cibson,” which I’ve never heard of. – Jerry King
Your guitar is obviously meant to copy an early Gibson. I would guess it was made in Japan, as American companies never really copied each other. It sure looks like a production guitar, though it could have been made by an individual (though you’d expect higher quality).
There are plenty of clues that prove it’s not a Gibson, foremost being that its wood is laminated/pressed (not carved), the sound holes are not bound, and the odd trapeze tailpiece. Also, Gibson never used that translucent tortoiseshell plastic for its pickguards, and the tuners look to be Japanese or European.
Gibson did use Bakelite knobs like those in 1939, but after World War II they became lucite. The duckbill select doesn’t match the knobs; early two-pickup Gibsons used a selector that I suspect (but don’t know) was a rotary three-way with another regular lucite knob. A small duckbill was used on the bout on a few early Les Pauls, but it was quickly changed to the familiar toggle.
The P-90 pickup first appeared after World War II, with Alnico magnets and the “staple” polepieces.
Japanese guitar companies didn’t begin copying American designs until the end of the ’60s, and it didn’t really catch on until the early ’70s. Several Japanese brand names were created to imitate Gibson, including Gaban and Gibbon, but I’ve never seen Cibson. Curiously, Gaban and Gibbon guitars were outfitted with faux humbuckers like on your guitar, with pole pieces along the edge.
I’d guess this was made by a Japanese firm that got hold of old Gibson catalogs and put this together probably in the very late ’60s or early ’70s.
I’m guessing it was for the domestic Japanese market, and no Japanese guitars sold here claimed to be made in U.S.A. However, if you were selling them in Nagasaki, it would make them that much cooler, and no one would be the wiser. A lot of Japanese guitars were brought back to the U.S. by soldiers who were stationed there after WWII and through Viet Nam. – Michael Wright
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This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
