The name Harmony has been on guitars since 1892[1]. Over that time it has had 6 controlling companies and has been built at 5 places, 2 of them outside the USA. Which version you hold depends on the year and the serial number.
Facts with no start year, not drawn
Pick any bar on the neck. The card shows the dates, the quoted passage behind them and the source, and any rival version of the same date.
Each decade is a fret. The top strips show who controlled the name. The strips below them show where each product line was built, one group per line.
Hatched strips with a country stamp are plants outside the USA. Outlined strips are versions of a date that sources disagree on; they sit in the same place as the version they compete with.
The stamp on a card is the grade of the sources behind the dates, from primary company documents to community posts. Every card shows the passage it rests on.
Every plant on record, overseas ones first, with the product lines each one built. Press play to watch the brand move: lit plants were building that year, faded ones had already been left behind.
Showing every plant on record. Press play to watch Harmony change hands and move, from 1892 to today.
5 plants, 2 outside the USA
An era is a stretch of one product line where the controlling company and the plant stay the same. These rows are computed from the dated ownership and production facts, never typed in. 7 eras
| Line | Years | Controlled by | Built at | Grade · sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harmony Chicago | 1892 – 1916 | The Harmony Company (Wilhelm Schultz), Chicago | Harmony Chicago factory (address unverified) | community[1, 6] |
| Harmony Chicago | 1916 – 1940 | Sears, Roebuck and Co. | Harmony Chicago factory (address unverified) | community[2, 3, 4, 6] |
| Harmony Chicago | 1940 – 1975 | Harmony Company (independent, Kraus-led) | Harmony Chicago factory (address unverified) | community[5, 3, 4, 6] |
| Harmony Westheimer reissues | 2000 – 2018 | Holders of the Harmony name after 1975 (unverified) | Westheimer reissue builder (unverified) ?? | unverified[6, 7, 8, 1] |
| Harmony Westheimer reissues | 2018 – now | BandLab Technologies | Westheimer reissue builder (unverified) ?? | unverified[2, 11, 12, 13, 1] |
| Harmony USA (BandLab/Vista) | 2018 – now | BandLab Technologies | Kalamazoo 225 Parsons St (1917 Gibson building) | community[2, 11, 12, 13, 1] |
| Harmony Standard Series (import) | 2018 – now | BandLab Technologies | Harmony import line builder (disputed origin; China per blog) CN | community[2, 11, 12, 13, 14] |
Notable models by year introduced, and what a part was made of on a line and when that changed.
| Year | Model | Line | Grade · sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1928 | Roy Smeck models · acoustic | Harmony Chicago | community[1] |
| 2018 | Rebel reissue · electric | Harmony USA (BandLab/Vista) | unverified[1] |
| 2018 | Jupiter reissue · electric | Harmony USA (BandLab/Vista) | unverified[1] |
| — | Rocket · electric | Harmony Chicago | unverified[1] |
| — | Sovereign · acoustic | Harmony Chicago | unverified[1] |
| — | Stratotone · electric | Harmony Chicago | unverified[1] |
| — | Meteor · electric | Harmony Chicago | unverified[1] |
Pick the year your Harmony was built to see who owned the name and which plant built each line that year.
Every numbered marker on this page points here: the document, its grade and the passages relied on. An era is computed, so it cites the ownership and production facts it was derived from. A fact marked “no source” has no claim attached yet.