I guy I worked with gave me an old electric guitar today. Someone he knew was going to throw it out, so he took it and gave it to me.

From what I can tell it's a Harmony, but the name has been removed from the headstock. Looks like that area has been repainted.

I took it apart to clean it and the date on the pickguard was Mar. 8 , 1966. So it's pretty old. Sounded pretty good when I plugged it in. The pots are kind of scratchy, but if I leave them in one spot it sounds good.

It's missing the gear part of the high E tuning peg, and like 4 ferrules for the tuners, and 1 strap button, but everything else is there and original. Just need to find some parts. Off to Ebay.

Here's some pics

dude that is pretty sweet! keep us posted on the progress, it has a lot of promise, especially since you can find the parts you need relatively cheap and got it for free. nice score.

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I got a black cat bone, I got a mojo too.

I was looking on Ebay trying to find out what model it is and this is the closest I can find. This looks about the same, but with angled pickups and a different pickguard. This one sold for $312 with a original case. There was one the same kind as this but in better shape that sold for $394.

Hope this works, I'm linking the pic from ebay.

I found some more info. Looks like Harmony made these for Sears and Roebuck under the Silvertone name.

http://harmony.demont.net/model.php?id=690

I have my dad's old Silvertone. When I researched it, I found a very good website about the history of Silvertone guitars. They were a cheaper version
produced for Sears and someone else. But it seems like the have a cult following.

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Cowboy capital of the world

Silvertone was super popular from what I can gather. I was looking to buy a pre or early 60'2 Harmony Stella acoustic and read up on the Silvertones. My guess would be a lot of people have sentimental value attached to them since they were sold in Sears and department stores and likely a lot of people played them as their first guitar.

Set that puppy up for slide...... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

That thought did cross my mind. I need to fix the tuning pegs first. I say some on Ebay that Harmony made, but it's 3 x 3. I just need 1 peg and the gear part though, so I could probably take it off those and it would hopefully work. It's $25 though, see if I can find one cheaper. I'm not sure what the hole size or spacing is on it. I wouldn't mind having some chrome vintage style tuners on it, but would like to keep it as close to original as possible.

That's a Harmony H-15 Bobcat. The pickups are original DeArmonds.

The first music store I ever worked in was a Harmony dealership. Man, am I old!!

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You dig?

Heck yeah, free guitar. Another guitar hanger. Bigger collection. I wonder what kinda sounds/wiring/switching configurations you can possibly come up with seeing as you have so many knobs and a 3-way. Hmmm.

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-Kc
"Payin' dues."

The pickups sit on top of the pickguard, so there's no routing on the body except for the wiring, knobs, and switches.

Kind of looks like this


I seen someone selling the pickup and wiring on Ebay, it was at like $102 so far.

Back in the late seventies/ early eighties, when I was a stupid teenager, I destroyed several old off brand guitars similar to these ones, trying to make them look more "contemporary". Boy do I kick myself now!

Yes, you have a 1960s Harmony Bobkat H-15, or otherwise known as a Silhouette. Great little guitars with the DeArmond "Golden Tone" gold foil single coil pickup. Very nice sound for clean clear chords.
I have a 1966 H-14 Bobkat, which I was given about 7 years ago for free too!!

I think this is the Silvertone, based on the pickguard shape. The Harmony branded version the pickups were at an angle and the pickguard was shaped different, from the pics I've seen.

I replaced the tuner hole bushings today. It was missing 4 of them. Now it just needs part of the tuner for the high E and it's missing one strap button, but I'm not really worried about that.

Here is a photo of my 1960s harmony Bobkat. You can see some differences in the guitars, but basically they are the same.