Back in the day, like 1971, Dan used to wheel and deal and trade things with Harvey. And like Dan says, he usually got "an economics lesson." I know what he means. I borrowed money to buy a truck load of junk from Harvey that didn't add up to much of anything. I was 18 years old and ripe for the picking.

Dan just bought a Harvey guitar. It's a Maltese Falcon model, serial number X1080. Click the links to see the details.

Dan with X1080. Here's a nice view of the peghead end of the guitar. Note the characteristic checkered binding. It's the hook that makes this a Falcon. If it was just the same but had a sort of squared-off Fender head, it would be a Maltese Surfer.

Back view. The neck is staright hard rock maple. The body is nice flamed soft maple with a brown-to-black sunburst.

Serial number. Here's the serial number punched on the heel. I suppose the X stands for a cross-shaped guitar. And I think Harvey started his numbers at 1000. But I don't know if the different models were numbered separately or not. In this photo you can also see the lacquer crackling that is characteristic of the thin coats of car lacquer that Harvey used.

Back of neck. This instrument had its neck snapped off in a shipping accident. You can see the glue lines in this photo.

Back of peghead. In this photo you can see that someone did some finish touchup with opaque lacquer of the wrong color. Also the tuning gears have been changed, but these seem to be of the authentic Harvey style.

Front of body. The pickguard is plexiglas. Harvey would glue glitter to the back side, then spray over it with thick white lacquer. These are the German pickups he bought in bulk and used on most of his guitars. That's also the standard German whammy that he used so many of. The screw adjusts the tension of the internal spring. Notice the laminated fretboard, with two 1/4" strips of walnut and three wider strips of hard maple. The markers are white fiberglass resin poured in a square hole.

Peghead. The zero fret is typical. Here's another good shot of the decal. Notice it says "mfg Midway WN." No that's not Wisconsin. Its Washington. The decals were printed before ZIP codes and standard postal abbreviations were in common use.