The Harmony Caribbean or Colorama guitars are rare, but most don’t play that well. Great to look out, but if you are looking for a playable guitar, any of the electrics can still be a good value. Really any top-of-the-line Harmony guitars are quite desirable.

Get yourself a flashlight and a mirror and examine everywhere on the inside of the guitar. If you are lucky you will see a number stamped in there that has an H in front of it. This will be the model number (the digits after the H which stands for Harmony).

If you look through the f-hole or sound hole of a Harmony guitar, you will see two stamps. If this is difficult to read, try using a mirror to see the stamps that were also placed on the underside of the guitar’s top. The large stamp is the serial number, and the number after the “H” is the model.

However Harmony produced musical instruments under at least 57 brand names for other wholesale and retail organizations. Some of the brands that are actually Harmony instruments include Holiday, Vogue, Valencia, Johnny Marvin, Monterey, Stella and others.

Silvertone instruments and amplifiers were manufactured by various companies, including Danelectro, Valco, Harmony, Thomas, Kay and Teisco. The guitars, especially the 1960s models, are frequently prized by collectors today.

Sears began selling a selection of electric guitars and amps in the fifties, but it is the 1960s that the company sold most of its more popular models. Silvertone was the house name used by Sears for their instruments but these were actually made for Sears by several manufactures including Danelectro, Harmony and Kay.

2.0 out of 5 stars It’s a BEAUTIFUL guitar, BUT NOT USEFUL even for beginners. It is a BEAUTIFUL guitar, BUT the guitar do not tune properly, at least 3 fretboard sound equal, and more than 4 make a bad noise. But unfortunately the most important it is to get a guitar that sound good and tune properly.

If the Silvertone lacks vintage authenticity, it’s capable of producing a very broad range of really nice sounds, and you could make it your main—or only—stage guitar just as readily as, say, a favorite Telecaster or Les Paul Jr. For just around five hundred bucks, that’s a pretty decent return on your investment.

Henry “Kay” Kuhrmeyer

☺ Anyways, I HIGHLY recommend this guitar to anyone who is looking for a starter guitar and I would even go so far as to say that this guitar is a lot better than you would even need for a beginner. It has great sound but it doesn’t stay in tune for very long. It is a brand new Silvertone guitar.

Samick Music has first quality inventory on the ground in Tennessee that the MI industry is currently starving for. And, the Samick factory that produces Silvertone manufactures OEM guitars for many of the leading guitar companies.” For more information, head to RBI Music.

Kay came to be in 1928 after being renamed from Stromberg-Voisinet. They hit their peak production in the early 1960s and were dissolved by the end of the decade.

Unlike other guitar manufacturers, Kay rarely placed a serial number inside its instruments, so to determine the age of a guitar a visual inspection of a model’s specific characteristics must be made and checked against photographs of vintage instruments.

The latest edition of Guitar Player tests and rates three models of Kay Guitars which are billed as Barney Kessel jazz guitars. There are three P 90 models, which seem only to differ in body size. They are made in China and have street prices from $1,250 to $1,350!

The Kay Value Leaders first started appearing in 1960, and they were exactly as described: the most affordable thinline electric guitars in the catalog.

Kay Bass. From the time the first Kay bass was produced (1937), the majority of the wooden parts were made at the factory. Necks were contoured from hard maple, peg holes drilled, tops and backs formed-sanded, ribs bent and bass bars installed on tooling either made for or developed under Kuhrmeyer’s direction.