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The more I read, the more intrigued I get. Anybody know anything about these?: Bracing Patterns?

I met the guy that bought the trademark. He wants me to build him a prototype. Really nice sounding guitar ( I have a G-10 or B-10??) model to investigate.

http://www.grammerguitar.net/history.html

Mike

Interesting. Be fun to see what you come up with.

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When I was in High School, a guy who played in a band with me played a Grammer. "The Nashville." I grew up in Nashville in the sixties, and we saw lots of Grammer and Gower guitars back then (both brands seemed to be about the same). I don't know anything about the bracing patterns or anything, buy they had really big pegheads and the ones I've heard sounded good. I think that Grammer had something to do with the Sho Bro resonator guitars that Sho Bud built, but I could be mistaken. Good luck with the project!

Dave

Yep we still see and work on a few of them up here. Nothing notable about them in construction or tone in my experience. Just another US made guitar from back in the day.

Neat! I have never seen one in my shop. Sounds like a fun project.

The story of Levin Guitars is also interesting. Levin, Goya and Martin to be more specific. Built over half a million guitars and some pretty good ones too. We have one in our shop on the historic shelf as a conversation piece.

I remember having a Levin in once and it had an interesting bridge design on it. Another small American company trying to make it back in the day was Harptone. I had one in my shop a few years ago and it was the same model that George Harrison had and made right here in Virginia. I think the same company makes cases now but no longer guitars.

I had a Grammer for about a year back in 1972, birds-eye Maple B&S, non-burst Sitka top. The neck was pretty skinny. All the parts were pointy, the bridge, pick guard, headstock. I kept jabbing myself, so I traded it. Volume and tone was nothing to write home about, but it was a bit of acoustic guitar history.

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The Harptones started out in New Jersey I believe, and were associated with Sam Koontz (who apparently designed them) as well as the Standel amp company (and sold as Standels for a time). Somewhere along the line, production was taken over by the Sturgill brothers in Independence, VA. Interesting guitars in the same way as the Grammers are. There was apparently a Ringo Starr model--the RS back when they were still in New Jersey. Strange!

Dave

I stuck a camera in the body to look at the bracing. Nothing unexpected... except no finger bracing (no side bracing either). There is this odd brace, 1/8" thick that runs off x-brace near sound hole to just behind bridge plate that appears to function as the finger brace. both sides. at an angle that takes it near to the rim.

My understanding is that the bracing is a compromise between Martin D18 and Gibson J45. Did Gibson use this kind of bracing?

Anybody seen that before?

Did you take any pics on the inside? I'd love to see it.

Cool thread. I have a friend that has a 70’s Harptone. It actually sounds quite good.

Another interesting brand with an interesting story is LoPrinzi. I have a client that collects them as do a couple of his friends so I have worked on a bunch. Never heard of them before I ran into him.

The guitar boom of the 60’s sure produced some interesting stories.

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I did not take any pics. I’ll do that later this week.