The guitar of the 1890s was either used primarily for vocal accompaniment or as a continuo instrument in mandolin and banjo orchestras of the time. Mandolins had position markers at the 10th fret. Basically, markers at the 10th fret, versus the ninth (found on a few guitars and banjos before the 1880s), was a strategy employed by guitar makers who intended to sell their instruments into the immensely popular mandolin orchestras at the time. Very likely they would also have had three dots at the fifth, seventh, and 10th frets. Probably not too many survived, but likely they were small acoustics that used with gut strings, and glued-on bridges. Very little information is known about the earliest Harmony-made guitars.

In 1892, Schultz left Lyon & Healy and, with four employees, started Harmony in a loft of the Edison Building located at Washington and Market Streets in Chicago, later the site of the Civic Opera House. Knapp was bought out by a large instrument manufacturing giant, Lyon & Healy, and Schultz became foreman of the drum operation. Schultz, a mechanic, came to Chicago and got work at the Knapp Drum Company.

I have also seen references to 1959 models although the claim is that Kay never made the guitar model before 1961.Wilhelm Schultz, founder of Harmony on left with factory worker and manager I read that you can pull the knobs off and check the code on the electronic pots and possibly find their date of production thus dating the approximate model year of the guitar. The True-Tone seems to bring less for some reason pricing out in the $400 to $600 range. I have seen the Kay priced at $700 to $900 in good playing condition with minimum dings. These are fairly rare guitars regardless of the headstock name.

I have a friend who owns a True-Tone model. I have also never seen it with any other color pick-up selector besides black which may have been a change in later models. This may indicate that this particular guitar was from the earliest production (i.e. As pointed out above, I believe the later models might have had the more pointed cut-away. Based on what I have seen, Kay produced the guitars (semi-hollow body) from 1961 to 1965. Based on the shape of the headstock, I would say that is a Western Auto True-Tone Jazz King which was produced by Kay and is essentially just the Kay Speed Demon with a different name applied.

Kay guitar identification