1962 Regal Branded Harmony Meteor R272 Archtop Electric Guitar

 

Love this instrument.  It is basically a Harmony Meteor that has been rebranded under the Regal name.  The history gets a little confusing.  These guitars were still being made by Harmony but being distributed by Fender.  Fender was trying to diversify their product line a bit as they were obviously famous for their solid body guitars, but at the time (until the Coronado came along) they didn't have any semi-hollow or hollow body products.

I have divulged this little secret before - I believe these Regal branded instruments are better than their Harmony branded counterparts.  I don't know why this is.  They just feel better in my hands and sound better to me.  I used to own a Harmony Meteor and had to sell it.  Loved the way it sounded, but the neck was terribly skinny.  The neck on this guitar is way more substantial and comfortable to play and it provides a great tone as well.  The same goes for the Harmony Sovereign acoustic line.  The Regal branded Sovereigns have always sounded and felt better to me.  Again, a lot of this has to do with the bigger necks these Regal branded guitars were sporting.  I have featured a couple of these Regal Sovereigns before in these pages.

This guitar is in really nice shape and is all original except for the pickguard.  It doesn't need much, but I might think about raising the pickups a little to hopefully increase output a bit.  Could lower the bridge to achieve this, but I like the current action.  Might think about a compensated bridge and tweaking the tuners a bit, but overall, I couldn't be happier.  These are all solid wood guitars with spruce tops.  I have been looking for one of these for a long time.  They are pretty scarce.  The Harmony Meteors are way more abundant.

Terrific Dearmond pickups!

I have always loved that Harmony products were dated.  As you can see here this is dated F-62, with the model number (272) next to the date.  Much to my surprise when you look inside you can also see that box with what looks like my name in it(Ed).  Guess we were meant to be together!  Lets not forget the Made In The USA stamp.  You don't see that very often anymore.