Harmony Company

The Harmony Company was founded in 1892 by Wilhelm Schultz. In 1916, it was bought by Sears, Roebuck and Co., which wanted to corner the ukulele market, and went on to become the largest producer of stringed instruments in the country, selling some 250,000 pieces in 1923 and 500,000 in 1930, including all kinds of guitars, banjos, and mandolins. In the late 1930s, the firm was making violins again, bought brand names from the bankrupt Oscar Schmidt Co. – La Scala, Stella, and Sovereign – and was marketing not only Harmony products, but also using the Sears name, Silvertone, plus a variety of trade names, such as Vogue, Valencia, Johnny Marvin, Monterey, and others. The company hit a peak in 1964-1965, selling 350,000 instruments, but low-end foreign competition led to the company’s demise 10 years later. Between 1945 and 1975, the Chicago firm had mass produced about ten million guitars, but finally was no longer competitive.