 H46 - Stratotone Mars
Electric hollowbody - Sunburst
Production year(s) : 1958-1965 (other years possible, not verified)
2 pickups - Early models (58-59) had the "long tail Y" on the headstock logo. Later (from 1962), were added black line and atomic logo on the pickguard.
 28 images in database
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24 comments | Add your comment ! - Doug - 2006-11-26
I bought this guitar in a yard sale in 1976 with an origional 1957 fender Champ amp for.....$50Can. I must rebuild it as I ripped it apart when I was young and foolish and really regret it now. All that remains is the body with a few drill holes in it, the origional wooden bridge and machine head. Long gone is the wonderful sunburst finish and the flat plate pickups and the pick cover (which incidentally never had the nuclear fusion logo) the date was clearly stamped on the interior (1965) - TomSea - 2008-01-14
My daughter picked this guitar up from a friend in the 70's for $10. Unfortunately, it was totally covered with day-glo spray paint. She lost interest; I took it and I broke it down, striped it, and gave a nice clear/natural finish. All original parts are still there, but the logos are lost. I still play it! - John Prestia - 2008-03-08
Having been a Harmony kid in the sixties, I've found my way back to a few of them and can't even begin to describe the fun my friends and I have playing them...currently have a Stratotone "Mars", Meteor, and a Rocket...even called my latest cd..."Harmony Parlor"..BIG FUN! - Garold - 2008-09-07
I was playing a gig at yhe Hard Hat Bar in Hale, Michigan. A guy came up and said I have a guitar in my trunk, you can have it if you want it. It looks exactly like the first guitar pictured. It's in rough shape but I strung it up last week and have been playing slide on it every day. Sounds great. - Leonard Masino - 2008-09-16
I bought one of these Harmony Stratotone H-46 Mars' at a pawn shop here in south Mississippi in early 2005. I paid $139 flat. The guitar is in excellent condition. It plays and sounds great. It even came with the original case which unfortunately was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. Luckily the guitar was in a safe place and was not hurt at all. I hate that I lost the case, but the guitar is still a jewel in my collection. Ii is a keeper for sure. I believe Mars is about a 1962. It has the atom emblem on the pickguard and the later musical note logo on the headstock. - Mamalied - 2008-10-06
I have a '60 with the plain pickguard that I picked up off of Ebay. Buy these while they are still cheap! These are the guitars that i used to drool over when I was a kid. Oh, and this model was Brian Jones' first electric guitar and he recorded the first few Stones albums with it. - GROOVEY RECORDS - 2009-06-01
THIS IS THE FIRST ELECTRIC GUITAR I EVER BOUGHT
AN OLD GIRLFRIEND HAS IT STILL BUT GETTING IT BACK IS GONNA BE HARD
I SAW A PICTURE OF THE STONES BRIAN JONES PLAYING IT IN 65 I BOUGHT IT IN 67 FOR $50 WITH MY FIRST PAYCHECK AT A RECORD STORE WHEN I WAS 13 YEARS OLD - Denny Lee Williams - 2009-07-17
I have been through a bad Stratotone addiction for the last 2 years and I really am having a hard time kicking the habit.When I got to 13 in my collection I said hey I can't afford this anymore the last of them are on E Bay now.
It's been almost worse than Heroin but not as bad as the Valium addiction I over came in the 70's.In a nut shell after all the models I've owned my favorite is the old El Cheapo 1420, Mars,and the single pups too.I am currently playing a chopped jupiter with a gold foil in the front and a hershey in the rear wired with one master vol and one of the new tone controls that fender uses when the tone is wide open it by passes the pots and it's straight pipes to the amp unbelievable difference in gain and tone also I prefer just a regualr 3 way Gibson switch to the Tele style and I glue my bridge down but I have put a tune a matic on this Blondie Dog I scored off the Bay.I am going to change the neck out to the el cheapo no truss rod fatty it's my favorite. Glad I got it out!
Denny Lee Williams
Nashville Tennessee - cosmic friend - 2009-08-12
i just bought this model from an older couple and the womans "late" husband was the original owner bought it new! When i got it this past weekend all the neck was sanded but the rest is "all there" $100 dollars was paid in a KFC parking lot.all i had to do was a little electronics work. and wahla pickups are vintage glory! - Bobby F - 2009-08-31
I learned how to play on a Silvertone branded Harmony H46 that I bought from a friend when he got his strat. Strung it with flatwounds and played Link Ray tunes on it through a Silvertone 1482 amp. Man, I still love those funky pickups!! - Zeb Balas - 2012-05-29
I have a 1967 Model as dated from backside of pickups. It was my Grandpa's and my Dad fixed it up for me. He put a tom bridge on it and a humbucker in bridge position with coil splitting. The tom really made it very playable, in tune and intonated. Stewmac makes replacement tuners for these now. It is a great guitar with a full unique sound. The sunburst finish is also great. - Robert L Duckworth - 2012-09-01
I was rehearsing in a blues band playing bass one afternoon. We were finished and talking outside when a guy came up asking if anybody wanted to buy a guitar. He smelled a bit of gin and nobody wanted it. I said "How much"? He said "Twenty dollars". I pulled out a twenty and took it home. Everything works perfectly and aside from some wear on the neck it's in very good shape and stone stock. I like it alot but would MAYBE sell it to a Stones/Brian Jones freak for stupid money. He had the exact same guitar around '63 or so. - Hoarbear - 2014-01-04
I bought one new in 1964 and played Jr. High dances in a band. I pulled it out of the back of my closet this morning and it still plays OK. I'm going to put some new tuners and new pickups on it, then I'm ready to rock again. - justice sanford - 2014-07-03
i got a 1961 harmony stratotone for $30... it's brandless and just walnut look to it - Bill Smith - 2014-09-07
This was my very first guitar my dad bought from a hock shop.. at one point I totally stripped it down and painted black and it actually came out pretty good. Still have it and plan on restoring it. - Curtis Willey - 2015-10-13
Nice site. Thanks for all the help I've received this afternoon just by reading your posts. I just picked up the guitar this site is calling an H45. I paid 6.99 in a thrift store. It was on a couch next to a lady and I asked her if she was going to buy it. She said if you play you can have it. I said I did and she gave it to me to buy. I got it home and looked it up and found this site. I pulled the pick guard off because the jack had been poked into the body and I wanted to check it out anyway. The stamps inside back said "6 H45" and "S-66-WN Made in USA". So I'm confused about this being an H46 when the stamp says H45, unless the prefix 6 is what makes the difference? Also I assume the S in the other stamp means Spring of 1966 so it looks like the production went past 1965 as a previous writer suggested. In any case its a little beauty and I am excited to catch the Stratotone fever. Thanks again everyone. - Eric Utrecht - 2015-11-27
I'm a proud owner of a 1959 H46 Stratotone Mars model. Original purchased at a flee market in the Los Angeles area back in the early 2000's for the hefty sum of $45 bucks. All original but I didn't get the case with it. Luckily my brother has the correct case for it in storage so I traded him an old Ibanez case for it...hehe. Neck is fat and chunky on these early Stratotones (as the early necks were non-adjustable) but man what great tone they produce. - Bill Mercer - 2017-06-30
Dear Sir:
I need the Harmony Stratotone Mars H-46 Volume Knobs. (I have the 2 Tone Knobs.)
They are fluted & stacked.
The Top knob is cream colored and the bottom is black.
Thanks for any suggestions!
(The PK-3260-028 from All Parts is not correct.)
God Bless
Bill Mercer
billmercer39@hotmail.com
- Roy Goodwin jr - 2017-08-08
I got my first H46 from a friend in 65 he got it from a Montgemy ward Catalog in 64 I just got a rEPLACEMT LAST WEAK ON 8/4/17.AFTER SELING THE FIRST ONE IN 1971. - Jason - 2017-12-13
This was my dads guitar and as a dumb kid i took the pick guard off it because i thought that would make it louder acousticlly, now id like to find a replacement pickguard. - Payam - 2018-07-20
I just picked up an H46 model from a thrift store not knowing what it is. I just loved the look of it. As soon as I picked it up, I knew it is not just a cheap built guitar. It took me a few hours to research it. Now I know. I am glad I got it. This is the only thing I have that's older than me, not by far though.
- Rob Wilson - 2019-04-20
My father bought me a Statotone owned by Brian Jones, and paid £7.00 for it. I was lucky enough to know Dick Hattrell who back in 1959/1960 actually paid for it, and he provided confirmation of its origin. I sold it some years ago at Christie's in London for £65K.
- Brian - 2020-04-17
I inhereted 14 guitars last year and am just getting around to identifying the last one and I am pretty sure it's a modified 58 or 59 H46 Mars Sunburst that has one non standard pickup and non standard knobs, switch and pick guard.
Are the knobs, switch, pick guard and headstock decals still available anywhere? - Joshua - 2020-08-05
I just inherited one of these from my uncle who was born in 1960. My grandfather bought the guitar for my uncle when he was a kid. There is a number stamped inside the body by the neck pocket that reads 932H46. But right inside the hole,There is another number stamped that reads S-65-W. Anybody know what that means?
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