My mom bought the Crown City F-613 guitar for me in 1972, with the help of a guitarist. It was in her price range, $150, and the sound was great. As you can see, there aren’t any crown symbols or markings, just the tag on the inside. I haven’t played much in the few decades, but retrieved it from the attic, recently, when my granddaughter expressed an interest in learning. With or without crowns, the sound is even sweeter than I remember.

Hello, I just picked up this beautiful guitar for $40. Cleaned it up put new strings on it and wow, it sounds beautiful. Did some research on it and think it could be 50+ years old. A true Martin D-28 copy but I can’t tell if it is solid wood. I owned a 1970 Martin D-28 from 1971 to 2017 when it was stolen. My current guitars are a 2007 Larrivee D-03R and a 2017 Washburn Parlor R 320 SWRK, both all solid tonewoods.
What I am really amazed at about this CCI FW-618 is how well it stays in tune and is perfectly intonated (actually better than my old Martin!) for how old it is. The volume and sustain are awesome, tone and action acceptable, and I will put some non-plastic bridge pins in. The saddle and nut appear to be bone. The Fishman soundhole pick-up works flawlessly. My wife is calling it a restoration guitar for my Martin – well – defiantly not as nice, but hey, $40 bucks!?
PS: Nice hardshell case too!

Have some nice pics but didn’t see anywhere to upload them…?

I bought one of these in 1977, it was my first guitar and I loved it. I had a brother who was recording a lot back then and needed it more than me so I reluctantly gave it to him and have missed it ever since. I found an article that describes the history of Crown City Imports…
http://members.iinet.net.au/~mij_60s_guitars/Guitar%20Brands/02%20Brands/Crown/Crown%20Guitars.htm
Two brothers in Pasadena were importing these from Japan and selling them under the name Crown but then changed the name to Crown City Imports due to a copyright infringement. FYI Crown City was the nickname for Pasadena where they lived.
If you are still out there and read this I would really like to find this guitar again. If you were interested in selling it I would buy it in an instant merely for sentimental reasons… I think it’s my rosebud.
KR

Just acquired a Crown City Imports 12 String. It is probably a 1970’s Takamine. It has a spruce top, rosewood sides and back with a walnut triangular inlay just like a Takamine 353. It has the “Vine of Life” Mother of Pearl Rosewood fretboard. Has the Pearl beading and “Crown Logo” pearl inlay on the headstock. The serial # is 5001 written in pencil, suggesting that is was the first and maybe the only one. The model # TW 60M-12. Anyone got one? You can. Beautiful condition. 350.00 free shipping.

I tried many guitars at the Guitar Center in the $350 range, but none sounded as good as the Crown Import I happened across from Craigslist. I paid $200 and it came with a nice hard case. The label is FW618. It plays well, no fret buzz, and stays in tune pretty well. I think I’ll keep it for a good long time.

I bought one new at Betnuns music in Los Angeles in 1975 for 175.00. mine is a Crown City Imports FW-620 6-string Acoustic Dreadnought (Martin Copy), Vine-of-Life design. (has a mother of pearl vine going up the fretboard) It sounds pretty good like a Takamine and will never be worth much. It does have a really smooth, small neck. Great for smaller hands. I have kids and i can leave it out and dont have to worry all the time about it being damaged. My mac will not post pics but I’ll keep trying.

Cheers for the info tg. Thread’s been dead for a couple of years but these things are always useful for the search engines, saves people having to go to the lengths you did!

Thanks, and welcome BTW!

I’m new here but decided to register to give y’all some info on the Crown City brand. I inherited a Crown City Martin knockoff a couple of years ago and searched for some time to try and find out what it was.

The guy who owns the Truetone Music guitar store in Santa Monica CA finally solved the mystery for me. There is a Pawn Shop in Pasadena CA called Crown City Jewelry and Loan (I think) and in the 70’s (and maybe 60’s) he was selling huge amounts of guitars. At some point he decided to simply start importing guitars under his own company banner. Hence the name Crown City imports. Don’t know who actually manufactured them but this is, apparently, for whom they were manufactured. Pasadena’s nickname, by the way, is the Crown City.

My Crown City acoustic is a relatively nice acoustic that stays in tune pretty well and is fun to play. I don’t use it often but usually take it if I’m going camping or knocking around and don’t want to bring one of the nicer guitars.

I hope this helps to solve this little mystery.

Yes I have one and the model number is FW 613T.

Welcome here, Nate. Does yours also have the odd dot-markings?

I have a similar guitar as well. My mom bought it for my dad in 1976. I’ll go home and check the serial number in a bit, but it looks identical except that the headstock on mine doesn’t have that inlay.

I just picked up another older Japanese Martin copy from Japan. It’s an “ELVIS” brand, Made by Daiwa-Gakki, Tokyo, Japan. I never knew Daiwa made guitars. It’s one sweet axe. I’ll post pics soon.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e249/popiel52/ICguitar.jpg

Here’s a pic of the guitar.http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e249/popiel52/ICguitar.jpg

Popiel, if you tried to put up a picture image of the guitar and it didn’t work out, please get back in touch. I should be able to get it successfully posted for you.

I just acquire an IC crown city imports Martin clone yesterday. the model # is FW-617. It looks like it might have been made by Takamine in the 70’s. It has a solid spruce top, solid rosewood back and sides with pearl purfling around soundhole and top of body. Sounds and plays great. Very well made.

Did a search on that serial number and came up with a web site that was listed as the unofficial Harmony Web Page. copied the pertinate paragraph which is pasted below. Hope this helps.

Many Harmonys I’ve seen incorporate an Hxxx in the serial number. The numbers after the H indicate the model. The numbers before might indicate the sequence number. Dating them seems to be a little more complicated. Some guitars seem to have an F-66, FW-59 or similar number stamped inside the guitar, along with “Made in the USA.” This number will indicate the year of manufacture, but it doesn’t appear all the time. The F indicated the Fall manufacturing run for the Xmas season. The S indicated that they were being made for the Summer run of instruments. It confirmed the dating of some guitars I have, with what I surmised to be their date of production.

Evidently Harmony was farming out production to Japan by the time yours was made. Nothing wrong with that there are some fine values for the money being made in Asia.