Guitar Industry Timeline

1546-Present

This timeline explores the guitar industry from its early inception, through the boom in US and overseas manufacturing in the 60s, to the present day guitar market. Included is information about individual manufacturers as well as industry trends as a whole.

1546

• First publication of a book of guitar music

1600-1650

• The Guitar’s popularity begins to rival the lute.

1807

• Furniture maker Johann Georg Martin (C.F. Martin’s father) begins making guitars in their home in Germany

1811

• The young Christian Frederick Martin entered an apprenticeship with Johann Georg Stauffer, one of the most well-known guitar builders in Europe. Martin proved to be a gifted craftsman, as he was named foreman of Stauffer’s shop shortly after his arrival. He remained at Stauffer’s shop in Vienna until 1825.

1833

• Christian Frederick Martin leaves Germany and immigrates to the United States. He sets up shop selling musical instruments and making Martin guitars in New York City

1834

• Oliver Ditson company founded in Boston. It was one of the largest music publishers, distributors, and instrument manufacturers in the 1800s.

1839

• C.F. Martin moves his family and guitar-making business from New York City to Cherry Hill, Pennsylvania, and later in 1859 to the nearby town, Nazareth.

1852

• Martin builds 215 guitars in the year, increasing to 303 the following year in 1853.

1854

• Luthier Josef Hauser is born in Berghausen, Germany. He established a workshop in Munich, Germany in the 1870s primarily producing Zithers. Many generations of Hausers have continued on the tradition of producing fine instruments, particularly classical guitars.

1857

• C.F. Martin introduces Style 18 appointments

1858

• C.F. Martin introduces Style 42 appointments

1861

• American Civil War begins

1862

• C.F. Martin introduces Style 28 appointments

1864

• The Oliver Ditson company establishes a Chicago branch called Lyon and Healy. It sold guitars under the Washburn brand, as well as band instruments, accordions, harps, accordions, harps, harmonies, violins, and accessories

1865

• American Civil War ends

1870

• Luthier Salvador Ibanez opens a workshop in Valencia, Spain, to produce classical guitars. His guitars were sold throughout Europe and were later imported to Japan by the Hoshino Gakki company

1871

• Oscar Schmidt Company founded in Jersey City, New Jersey, by German immigrant Oscar Schmidt. His stringed instrument manufacturing company boomed in the early 1900s with 5 factories in Europe and 1 in the United States. They made guitars, banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, zithers, and autoharps. Quality ranged from top of the line to beginner models.

1872

• The Montgomery Ward Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois. The company used mail-order catalogs to sell a wide variety of merchandise, including guitars. These catalogs made it possible for the average student or beginner to purchase an affordable guitar, mailed directly to their home – anywhere in the country.

1873

• Friedrich Gretsch Sr immigrates to New York City from Mannheim, Germany and goes to work for a drum and banjo manufacturer called Albert Houdlett & Son
• Anastasios Stathopoulo crafts his first instrument. His family business would later become the Epiphone Company.

1877

• The Stathopoulo family moves from Greece to Smyrna, Turkey and sets up a store selling and repairing lutes, violins, and bouzoukis. The store was officially opened in 1890.

1881

• Orville H. Gibson, moves to Kalamazoo, Michigan and takes up the hobby of making musical instruments.

1882

• Jose Ramirez founds Ramirez Guitars in Madrid, Spain, making high-quality classical and flamenco guitars. The business has been passed down through the family and remains in operation today
• Hermann Hauser I is born. He joined his father’s workshop, and began building instruments, specializing in classical guitars. Famed classical guitarist, Andres Segovia, played a guitar by Hauser from 1937 and 1970. Many consider Hermann Hauser I one of the most influential classical guitar luthiers of all time. His son and grandson continued on his dynasty of classical guitar building.

1883

• Friedrich Gretsch Sr sets up his own business – the Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company – in Brooklyn, New York to build banjos, drums and tambourines

1886

• Carl Larson immigrates to Chicago from Sweden. His brother, August, joined him a year later

1887

• Martin adds steam-powered machinery to its factory
• Torakusu Yamaha founds Nippon Gakki Co. Ltd (later Yamaha Corporation) as a piano and reed organ manufacturer in Hamamatsu, Japan. In the early 1940’s, Yamaha began building classical guitars
• Karl Hofner founds the Hofner company and it quickly becomes the largest instrument builder in Germany – selling violins and other stringed instruments. In the fifties, sixties, and seventies, Hofner instruments were sold through Selmer in London, England, placing them in the hands of many musicians

1889

• The Lyon and Healy company boasted of 1,000 Washburn branded instruments in its 1889 catalog

1890

• Groeshel Mandolin Company (what would eventually become Kay Musical Instruments) established in Chicago, IL
• German violin-maker Victor Carroll Squier establishes the V.C. Squier Company, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Squier began manufacturing strings for their own violins in 1895 as most strings were manufactured in Europe. By 1918 strings became their primary focus, producing strings for violins, banjos, and guitars. Squier also invented the first string winder

1892

• The Harmony Company is founded in Chicago, IL by German immigrant Wilhelm Schultz, making guitars and mandolins

1894

• Orville Gibson launches his one-man musical instrument manufacturing business
• Gretsch moves to a larger space on South 4th Street in Brooklyn. Within a year of the move, Fred Gretsch Sr passed away at the age of 38. His wife and 15 year-old son, Fred, kept the company running

1896

• The first Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog is available, selling all sorts of merchandise, including guitars. Sears was a competitor to the Montgomery Ward Company in the mail-order catalog business. Mail order catalogs really took off in the 1950s and the primary guitar suppliers of Sears’ “Silvertone” brand guitars during that time were Kay, Harmony, National, and Danelectro
• The CTS (Chicago Telephone Supply) company is founded in Chicago. They supplied parts first for telephones, then radios, televisions, and other developing electronic devices. Amongst their product offerings were volume & tone potentiometers utilized on electric guitars. Many companies still use high-quality CTS pots today.

1897

• Lyon and Healy producing 100,000 Washburn guitars per year
• Harmony begins providing instruments to the Sears, Roebuck & Company

1900

• The Larson brothers purchase the Maurer & Company and set up shop in Chicago, making instruments under the Maurer, Stahl, Dyer, Stetson, Prairie State, and Euphenon brands. They were the first important makers to build steel-string acoustic guitars, but also produced harp guitars, mandolins, and more. They pioneered laminated top braces with a combination of spruce, ebony or rosewood, and spruce sandwiched together, which were stronger than solid spruce, and utilized 5-piece laminated necks with maple and ebony strips for more strength

1902

• Five men in Kalamazoo provide the necessary capital to expand Orville Gibson’s instrument manufacturing business. The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co., Limited, was thus founded. Orville Gibson was willingly bought out of the business for $2500 (most likely due to health concerns) but stayed on as a consultant.

1903

• The first official Gibson product line featured mandolins (A or F style), mandolas, mando-cellos, guitars (“L” roundhole or “O” oval hole styles) and harp guitars (“R” style with 12 strings or “U” style with 18 strings)
• Anastasios Stathopoulo emigrates from Turkey and opens shop in New York City – establishes “A. Stathopoulo” instruments
• The Vega Company is incorporated in Boston, Massachusetts, as a musical instrument manufacturer. The company made both brass and stringed instruments, and is most known for its banjos.

1904

• Martin designs its first Style 45 guitar

1905

• Swedish-immigrant Charles Stromberg sets up shop in Boston, Massachusetts and begins building and repairing orchestra and band instruments, drums, mandolins banjos, and guitars

1908

• The Regal Musical Instrument Company is incorporated in Chicago, Illinois, producing ukuleles and tenor guitars. The Regal company supplied instruments and parts to many other companies and brands, in addition to making its own instruments under the “Regal” brand.
• The Hoshino Gakki Company established in Nagoya, Japan to sell sheet music and distribute music products

1909

• The Oscar Schmidt Company registers the brand names Stella and Sovereign
• Gibson introduces its own brand of strings

1910

• Elmer Stromberg joins his father Charles making instruments, and goes on to produce some of the best archtop guitars ever made. In the early 1930s, Stromberg standardized a line of seven models – the Master 400, Master 300, Ultra-Deluxe, Deluxe, G3, G2, and G1. Elmer made a total of 340 guitars.

1914

• World War I begins
• Nine-year-old John D’Angelico begins apprenticing with his grand uncle Ciani, a violin and mandolin maker

1915

• Anastasios Stathopoulo passes away and leaves his business to his son Epaminondas or “Epi” for short
• Harmony becomes the first large-scale ukulele builder

1916

• Martin uke production takes off as the ukulele boom begins.
• Sears, Roebuck & Co. acquires Harmony musical instruments in an attempt to corner the ukulele market. Sears also adopted the house brand Supertone for its stringed instruments, which were mostly made by Harmony
• Gretsch completes construction of a new ten-floor factory at 60 Broadway in Brooklyn, New York. They claimed it was the largest musical instrument factory in the United States
• Manuel Ramirez passes away and one of his employees, Santos Hernandez, branches out to set up his own shop to build flamenco guitars. Hernandez has been described as the “Stradivarius of flamenco.”

1917

• Martin changes style 18 woods from rosewood to mahogany
• Gibson opens a new factory at 225 Parsons Street in Kalamazoo, Michigan
• Epi Stathopoulo renames his father’s company “House of Stathopoulo,” which went on to become known for their high-quality banjos and upright basses. The company was incorporated in 1923.

1918

• World War I ends

1919

• Lloyd Loar goes to work for Gibson. He helps redesign and refine the Gibson carved archtop instruments to help increase lagging sales. His designs have become the standards to which all other carved instrument strive. He developed the Master Model series, which included style 5 banjos, the H-5 mandola, K-5 mandocello, the famed F-5 mandolin, and the L-5 guitar
• The Waverly Novelty Company is established in New York, NY. The company provided most metal parts and accessories for banjo makers on the East Coast and also provided guitar machine heads for flat-top and archtop acoustic guitar manufacturers such as Martin, Gibson, and Epiphone

1920

• Martin sees extraordinary growth selling 1524 mandolins, 1336 guitars, and 3150 ukuleles in 1920.

1921

• C.F. Martin & Co is incorporated by Frank Henry Martin
• Groeshel Mandolin Company renamed “Stromberg-Voisinet” and produces mandolins, tenor guitars, tenor banjos, and 6-string guitars

1922

• Guitarist Nick Lucas releases the first steel string flat-picked guitar instrumentals with “Teasin’ the Frets” and “Picking the Guitar”
• Waverly Novelty Company is incorporated and renamed Waverly Musical Products Co Inc

1923

• Gibson general manager Lewis Williams resigns from Gibson
• New Gibson general manager, Harry Ferris, shortens the company name from “Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Co.” to “Gibson, Inc.” Ferris quickly helped the company turn a profit after several unprofitable years, but butted heads with the board of directors and was forced to resign in 1924.
• John D’Angelico takes over his uncle, luthier Ralph Ciani’s, workshop at 57 Kenmare Street in New York City.
• Harmony became the largest producer of musical instruments in the US with over 250,000 units sold

1924

• Lloyd Loar leaves Gibson to pursue other interests in musical instruments

1925

• Half of US homes now have electricity, paving the way for the development of electric instruments
• Tool-and-die maker Adolph Rickenbacher forms the Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company in Los Angeles. He was soon hired to make the metal bodies for National resonator guitars
• Hofner begins producing guitars. Hofner guitars gained notoriety in the 1950s when it released archtop models such as the President, the Committee, and the Violin Bass.
• Former Gibson employee Lewis Williams builds the first public address system termed the “Mysterio”
• John Edward Kluson, who formerly ran the Harmony Company’s machine shop, founds Kluson Manufacturing Company in Chicago to make tuning machines, tailpieces, and other stringed instrument parts. Kluson tuners and hardware were used on many top instruments over the next several decades including  Gibson, Fender, Rickenbacker, and Martin.

1926

• Gibson enters into the flat-top guitar market (which had been dominated by Martin for many years) by releasing its first regular production flat-top acoustic guitar, the L-1, which was formerly an archtop model. Gibson sought to undercut Martin’s sales by offering their flat-top guitars at significantly lesser prices with similar specifications
• Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company begins building flat-top, and later, archtop guitars under a variety of brand names. They officially released their own line of flat-top and archtop guitars called the “American Orchestra Series” in 1933

1927

• The first signature series guitar was instigated by the Gibson Company for Nick Lucas – a singer and musician of the day who recorded the very first guitar solo and was the world’s first popular guitarist. Gibson issued a concert sized L-1 with extra depth as the ‘Nick Lucas Model’.

1928

• George Beauchamp joins forces with the Dopyera brothers to start the National String Instrument Corporation in Los Angeles, California. The partnership only lasted until 1929.
• Adolph Rickenbacher named the company engineer at National
• The House of Stathopoulo changes its name to the Epiphone Banjo Company
• Epiphone introduces its first line of guitars called the “Recording Series” which included models A through E, with two being flat-top acoustic and three being archtop acoustics. Each model featured a cutaway and 13-fret neck joint and was available in a 13-3/8” concert body or 15.5” auditorium body.
• Selmer UK founded to license, import, and distribute instruments in Great Britain. By 1939, Selmer UK was the largest company in the British musical instrument industry 
• Oscar Schmidt Company described as “the world’s largest manufacturer of fretted musical instruments.”

1929

• Great Depression begins
• After conflict amongst management, John Dopyera leaves National and subsequently forms the Dobro Corporation, Limited, introducing his own line of resonator guitars
• Montgomery Ward makes an agreement with Gibson to produce guitars, banjos, and mandolins under the brand names “Recording King” and “Studio King.” In 1935, Recording King instruments constituted 12% of Gibson’s sales – keeping them financially afloat during the depression. The agreement ended in 1941.
• Japanese company Hoshino Gakki Ten begins importing Salvador Ibanez guitars from Spain to sell in their music shop

1930

• Harmony musical instruments sells over 500,000 units.
• Regal begins producing Washburn brand guitars, but the brand never regained preeminence and by the early 1940s ceased production

1931

• On October 15, George Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and others from National form the “Ro-Pat-In Corporation” (later to become Rickenbacker guitars) to sell ‘Electro’ Hawaiian guitars. They were the first company formed for the sole purpose of providing fully electric instruments to musicians.
• Martin starts selling Dreadnaught sized flat-top guitars under its own name. They had been making fan-braced Dreadnaughts for Ditson since 1916 (33 to be exact).
• Epiphone releases 6 new “Masterbilt” f-hole archtop models (DeLuxe, Broadway, Triumph, Royal, Blackstone, Zenith) in order to steal the market away from Gibson, who was the market leader in archtop guitars, but only had 3 models
• Stromberg-Voisinet renamed “Kay Musical Instruments.” Kay would go on to become one of the foremost sellers of guitars, finding themselves in a quality bracket between Harmony and Gibson
• Gibson builds wooden toys in its factory from 1931 to 1933, in order to survive the Great Depression
• Oliver Ditson Company goes out of business

1932

• Due to the downturn of the economy, National and Dobro merged to become the National-Dobro Company, manufacturing both instrument brands
• John D’Angelico opens his own workshop on 40 Kenmare Street in New York and begins building archtop guitars and other instruments. He made 1164 guitars and a few dozen mandolins in his lifetime. His most popular models included the Excel archtop (D’Angelico’s equivalent of the Gibson L-5) and the New Yorker archtop (D’Angelico’s equivalent of the Gibson Super 400)
• Former Gibson employees Lloyd Loar and Lewis Williams form the Vivi-Tone Company, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and develop a variety of electric instruments, including the first electric piano and arguably, the first solidbody electric guitar. Vivi-Tone’s innovative ideas and instruments, however, did not catch on with consumers and the company closed its doors in 1938.

1933

• Martin builds its first D-45 guitar for singer and actor Gene Autry. Only 91 D-45s were built up until 1942 before being discontinued and are some of the most valuable flat-top acoustic guitar models.
• Martin introduces the D-28 herringbone model. D-28’s from 1934 until 1945 are considered to be some of the finest flat-top guitars ever built
• Vega introduces a full line of guitars – including steels, acoustic archtops and electric archtops (including one that sported the first double-coil “humbucking” pickup), however, their guitar line was not very successful.

1934

• Ro-Pat-In changes their name to “Electro String Instrument Corporation” and makes instruments marketed as “Rickenbacker Electro” models
• Gibson launches an in-house budget brand, Kalamazoo, which they manufactured on and off until 1970. These less expensive instruments had ladder (not X) bracing and did not feature an adjustable truss rod. Gibson made these and other instruments under a variety of brands and for a variety of companies to help them survive the depression years.

1935

• Epiphone introduces their first electric spanish guitars – the Electar archtops
• National-Dobro Corporation introduces the budget brand, Supro, which was exclusively devoted to electric instruments
• The Kay Musical Instrument Company produces 100,000 instruments per year, including guitars, mandolins, lap steels, and banjos. The instruments were sold under various brand names such as Groeschel, Stromberg, Kay Kraft, Kay, Kaywood, Lark, Kamico, Arch and Arch Kraft
• The Spanish Civil war breaks out and the Ibanez workshop is destroyed and many of the workers killed. The Japanese company that imported these guitars, the Hoshino Gakki Company, subsequently purchased the rights to the name and began producing spanish-style acoustic guitars, using the “Salvador Ibanez” brand.
• Harry DeArmond teams up with Bud Rowe to build pickups as the Fox Sound Equipment Corporation (later Rowe Industries) in Toledo, Ohio. DeArmond designed over 170 different pickups over the course of his career. His pickups were widely used in Harmony and Gretsch guitars, however, many manufacturers used DeArmond pickups, including – Airline, D’Angelico, Epiphone, Fender, Guild, Hofner, Martin, Micro-Frets, and Silvertone.

1936

• Gibson introduces the ES-150 electric spanish guitar. The 150 was basically a modified L-50 archtop fitted with a bar electromagnetic pickup placed in the neck position. It is viewed as the first readily available production model electric guitar.
• In the height of the depression, Gibson’s Jumbo flat-top guitar was not affordable to many. As a result, the Jumbo was discontinued and 2 new models replaced it – the Advanced Jumbo and the J-35. The Advanced Jumbo was a more expensive model to compete with Martin’s D-28, and the J-35 was a more affordable model to compete with Martin’s D-18, and allow the general public to afford a Gibson flat-top guitar
• Doc Kauffman signs a 5-year deal with Electro String Instrument Corporation to manufacture and distribute his Vib-Rola arm. The company used Kauffman’s vibrato arm on various Electro and Rickenbacker instruments until around 1960.
• National-Dobro Corporation moves from Los Angeles to Chicago, the center of the music industry at the time
• Harmony begins making Spanish-style electric guitars – full-sized hollowbodies with pickups attached.

1937

• In response to Martin’s D-45, Gibson introduces the Super Jumbo flat-top acoustic guitar. It is seen in the hands of Ray Whitley and Gene Autry on the silver screen.
• Regal acquires exclusive rights to manufacture and sell Dobro resonator guitars

1938

• Clarence Leonidas Fender (“Leo” Fender) began “Fender’s Radio Service” in late 1938 in Fullerton, California. Leo Fender was a qualified electronics technician and had been asked to repair radios, phonograph players, home audio amplifiers, public address systems and musical instrument amplifiers. 
• After releasing their first electric spanish guitar in 1936, the ES-150, Gibson releases a more budget-conscious model with the ES-100 in 1938 and in 1939, a higher-end model with the ES-250

1939

• World War II begins
• Gretsch releases its Synchromatic line of archtop guitars – its first serious guitars for the professional musician
• Gretsch releases its first electric guitar – the archtop Electromatic Spanish. The guitar was manufactured by Kay. It did not catch on, however, and was discontinued in 1942.
• Harmony begins to sell Stella and Sovereign branded instruments, after they were sold to Harmony by the Oscar Schmidt Company in 1938.
• The United Guitar company was founded in Jersey City, New Jersey and supplied guitars for a variety of brands such as Premier and US-made Hofners. They also supplied bodies for D’Angelico guitars that were to be fitted with pickups. With the rise of Japanese manufacturers in the late 1960s, United went out of business

1940

• George Beauchamp resigns from his position as Director of the Electro String Instrument Corporation due to health concerns, and died later that year

1941

• America joins the war effort, causing many manufacturers to cease or limit instrument production (particularly on models with metal parts)
• Gibson’s workforce is employed to make electrical and mechanical radar assemblies, small screw-machine products, glider skids for airplanes, and precision rods for use in submachine guns for the war effort. About 10% of their activities were still related to instrument manufacture
• CMI (Chicago Musical Instruments) becomes the exclusive US distributor for National Guitars
• Sears, Roebuck & Company changes its house brand from “Supertone” to “Silvertone” and releases its first spanish electric guitar
• Yamaha begins producing classical guitars

1942

• Due to the war, Martin discontinues its fancier models – the D-45 & 000-45 in 1942, and the 000-42 in 1943.
• Gibson discontinues several flattop models in 1942 & 1943 (Jumbo 35, Jumbo 55, SJ-100, SJ-200 & L-0) and introduces new flattop models (Southern Jumbo, J-45, LG-1, LG-2 & LG-3)

1943

• The National Dobro Company is purchased by Victor Smith, Al Frost, and Louis Dopyera and renamed Valco. Valco manufactured National, Supro, Airline, and Oahu instruments and amplifiers
• Due to the war, Gibson was forced to reduce its guitar product line to 6 models – two archtops (L-50 and L-48) and four flat-tops (L-00, LG-2, Southern Jumbo, and J-45). The instruments they did produce did not have truss rods due to wartime restrictions on metal and instead had very large necks with an internal strip of maple. They also only offered “three-on-a-plate” strip tuners and sunburst finishes
• In the midst of WWII, Eli Stathopoulo, president of Epiphone, passes away and the company begins to go downhill. The company never recovered

1944

• Gibson bought by Chicago-based CMI (Chicago Musical Instruments). CMI infused some much needed capital into the company in order for it to grow – including a 15,000 sq ft expansion of the factory in 1945.

1945

• World War II ends in September
• Leo Fender and Doc Kauffman start a business called “K&F Manufacturing Corporation” to build lap steel guitars and amplifiers. Doc Kauffman left the company in 1946, but Leo Fender continued on, renaming the company the “Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company.”
• The Schaller Company is founded by Helmut Schaller in Feucht, Germany. The company is most known for its guitar hardware components including tremolos, bridges, and tuning machines. Schiller’s M6 tuner was the first fully-enclosed and self-locking precision tuner.

1946

• Leo Fender works out an exclusive distribution deal for his Hawaiian guitars and amplifiers with F.C. Hall and his company “Radio and Television Equipment Company” (Radio-Tel)
• Everett Hull and Stanley Michaels establish Michaels-Hull Electronic Labs in Newark, New Jersey. Their first product was a pickup for an upright bass, which was called the “Amplified Peg.” In 1949, the company was renamed “The Ampeg Bassamp Company.” Ampeg went on to build some of the most well-known bass amplifiers in the industry, as well as a few lines of bass guitars
• Awoi Sound Research Institute (later renamed Teisco Co. Ltd) established in Tokyo, Japan, to produce electric guitars and amplifiers. In the 1950’s Japanese guitars did not sell well domestically as musicians were only interested in American instruments. Oddly enough, Japanese guitars sold well in the US, and thus Japanese companies primarily relied on sales of exported guitars. Japanese domestic sales increased in the 1960s.
• Bill May and his brother Reg, establish Maton Musical Instruments Company in Melbourne, Australia, producing acoustic guitars
• Lowel C Kiesel founds the L.C. Kiesel Company in San Diego, California. The company just manufactured guitar pickups at first, and later added guitar manufacturing

1947

• Former Epiphone amp-builder Nathan Daniel founds Daniel Electrical Laboratories in Lower Manhattan, New York, building amplifiers and echo units. After serving in the war, Nathan Daniel relaunched his company under the name “Danelectro” and moved production to Red Bank, New Jersey. Danelectro became the exclusive amp supplier for Sears (under the Silvertone brand) and also supplied amplifiers to Montgomery Ward (under the Airline brand)
• Tokai Gakki Company established in Hamamatsu, Japan, as a maker of harmonicas and pianos

1948

• In March on 1948, Ted McCarty joins Gibson from the Wurlitzer organ company as the new general manager.
• Amateur guitarist George Fullerton joins Fender as a repairman
• Fred Gretsch Jr takes over for his father as company president of Gretsch
• Mitsuo Matsuki establishes the Matsuki Sound Research Institute (later called Tokyo Sound) in Tokyo, Japan, to produce Guyatone guitars. Guyatone guitars were the primary competitor to Teisco in Japan. 

1949

• Lowel C Kiesel renames his company Carvin
• Gretsch begins utilizing a four digit numbering system for all of its guitars – 61XX for electric models and 60XX for acoustic models

1950

• Fender introduces its first production solidbody guitar with the single-pickup Esquire in the Spring of 1950.
• Ted McCarty is appointed president at Gibson, replacing the outgoing Guy Hart.
• Gibson sees a 50% increase in sales of electric Spanish guitars from the previous year. However, sales of electric instruments was still a third of acoustic instrument sales

1951

• Fender’s ‘Broadcaster’ is renamed the Telecaster after a cease and desist telegram from the Fred Gretsch Manufacturing Company – the legal owner of the ‘Broadkaster’ name, as used on one of their drum sets
• Fender releases the Precision bass – the first commercially successful fretted, electric bass. The Precision bass came with flatwound strings and string mutes attached to the bridge cover, as Leo Fender’s goal was to create a sound similar to an upright bass but with more volume.
• Gretsch releases a line of electric archtop guitars with the Electro II (later to be named the Country Club) and Electromatic (later to be named the Streamliner). The line included the Electro II Cutaway – Gretsch’s first cutaway electric.
• Epiphone experiences a bitter labor strike, shutting down production, and as a result moves its factory from Manhattan to Philadelphia in 1952. Many of Epiphone’s workers remained in New York
• UK government bans import of foreign instruments, leaving many guitar players unable to obtain high quality US made instruments from the likes of Fender, Gibson, and Gretsch. The ban would not be lifted until the summer of 1959.

1952

• After Fender’s solidbody electric guitar began to sell well, Gibson realized they needed a product to compete. In 1952, Gibson released their first solidbody electric guitar – the Les Paul – endorsed by popular guitarist and inventor Les Paul.
• Seth Lover rejoins Gibson as a full-time employee to work in the electronics department after a stint in the Navy. Among other things, he began to work on new pickup and amplifier designs.
• With Fender pioneering the Telecaster and Gibson following suit with its Les Paul, other manufacturers got in on the solidbody guitar market. In 1952, National released the Cosmopolitan model, Kay the K-125, and Supro the Ozark. More competition came in 1953 when Gretsch released the Duo Jet model and Harmony introduced the Stratotone.
• The Guild guitar company is formed by Alfred Dronge in Manhattan, New York, who hired several employees from Epiphone’s recently closed Manhattan factory. Dronge, a music store owner, partnered with former Epiphone executive George Mann to launch the company, but Mann left after a year. The company began building archtop electric guitars to the utmost standards of quality with their master craftsmen from Epiphone and Gretsch. The company added flattop acoustics the following year in 1953, semi-hollow electrics in 1960, and solidbody electrics in 1963.
• Jimmy D’Aquisto begins working for John D’Angelico
• Musical wholesaler Grossman Music Corporation acquires A.D. Grover & Sons, and becomes Grover Musical Products Inc, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Grover is known for its guitar machine heads, particularly its Rotomatics which housed the tuning mechanism in a cast metal shell (closed-back tuners). Grover provided machine heads to companies such as Gibson, Epiphone, Gretsch, and Martin. 
• Karl Hofner’s son, Walter, winds the company’s first electric pickup. Hofner released their first electric guitars – a line of electric archtops – the following year in 1953.

1953

• Fender acquires a 3.5 acre property in East Fullerton and builds three new manufacturing buildings to keep up with demand for their instruments
• Fender Sales Inc is set up in Santa Ana, California, to handle all of the distribution and marketing of Fender instruments. The company was set up with 4 equal partners – Don Randall, Charlie Hayes, F.C. Hall, and Leo Fender. Up until 1953, Fender instruments were distributed by Radio-Tel Electronics – founded by F.C. Hall.
• German guitar designer and builder, Roger Rossmeisl immigrates to the United States to work for Gibson
• Adolph Rickenbacher sells his company to F.C. Hall, founder of Radio-Tel Electronics. Within a year, Rickenbacker began producing solidbody electric guitars – angering the partners at Fender Sales Inc.
• Gibson Les Paul sales reach their peak with 2245 guitars sold. Sales would decline after the next several years until the body shape was redesigned with pointed double cutaways in 1961.
• Gibson releases its first solidbody bass guitar – the EB, which featured an extendable end-pin, so that one could play the instrument upright or horizontally
• Gretsch introduces its first solidbody guitar – the Duo Jet – to compete with Gibson’s Les Paul.

1954

• Fender introduces its new three pickup guitar – the Stratocaster. It featured a contoured body for player comfort, six-individual string saddles, and the first combination bridge-vibrato unit
• Fender hires Forrest White as its plant manager to streamline its manufacturing and operations
• Gibson begins producing more electric instruments than acoustic instruments. The popularity of the archtop guitar also began to decline with acoustic archtop sales down 38% and electric archtop sales down 18%
• Regal goes out of business. Harmony acquires the Regal brand name and used it on student-grade guitars starting in 1959
• Roger Rossmeisl takes a job at Rickenbacker after an unsuccessful tenure at Gibson. He goes on to help design and build Rickenbacker’s Capri series electrics and 4000 & 4001 basses. He is noted for the “German carve” that was pioneered by his father Wenzel Rossmeisl
• Danelectro begins producing guitars, with the majority sold to Sears & Roebuck under the “Silvertone” brand name, but also selling some under their own “Danelectro” brand. The guitar bodies featured masonite tops and backs with a pine frame, had two square tubes of aluminum running through the neck (instead of a truss rod), aluminum nuts, as well as low-output pickups that were cased in “lipstick tubes” which were wired in series instead of parallel. Danelectros were also the first guitars to feature concentric tone and volume knobs (one set for each pickup).

1955

• After the tragic death of Fender employee, Charlie Hayes, Don Randall and Leo Fender forced F.C. Hall out of Fender Sales Inc, giving Randall & Fender 50/50 ownership
• Gretsch releases an electric hollowbody model endorsed by country guitar superstar, Chet Atkins – the 6120
• Both Charles Stromberg (age 89) and his son Elmer (age 60) pass away, signifying the end of Stromberg guitars
• After introducing the Les Paul, the student model Les Paul Junior, and the upscale Les Paul Custom, Gibson introduces the Les Paul Special. It was a two pickup version of the Junior, with a solid mahogany slab body (without the carved maple top of the standard Les Paul) and fingerboard binding. The Special offered many of the features of the standard Les Paul at a lower price

1956

• First stereo recorded tapes appear, prompting guitar makers to experiment with “stereo” guitars
• Hofner releases the 500/1 bass. The bass featured a semi-acoustic body with a short 30” scale, and was made famous by Paul McCartney of the Beatles
• After the release of the Telecaster and Stratocaster, Fender introduced two lower-priced models aimed at students – the Musicmaster & Duo-Sonic. The Musicmaster featured a single pickup, with the Duo-Sonic sporting two, and both guitars had a short 22.5” scale length.
• The Guild factory is moved from New York City to Hoboken, New Jersey as they needed more space for their growing company
• Semie and Andy Moseley found Mosrite Guitars in Los Angeles, California. Semie Moseley was an apprentice of Paul Bigsby and former Rickenbacker employee who worked with Roger Rossmeisl. Mosrite guitars are known for thin necks, low frets, and high output pickups

1957

• In March or April, Orphie Strathopoulo calls Ted McCarty of Gibson saying that he was ready to sell what was left of the Epiphone company. Gibson was particularly interested in Epiphone’s upright bass business as they were amongst the most respected bass manufacturers in the US
• In May, Epiphone is bought for $20,000 by Chicago-based CMI (Chicago Musical Instruments) which also owned Gibson, and operations were moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan
• In England, guitar sales reached 250,000 units. This was up from 5,000 in 1950 due, in large part, to the popularity of Lonnie Donegan and Skiffle Music.
• Ramirez Guitars is passed down to Jose III, who experimented with non-traditional classical & flamenco guitar construction methods, developing guitars with a longer scale length (26.14”), asymmetrical fan bracing, and red cedar as the soundboard wood (in 1965). 
• Tom Jennings founds the Vox company in Dartford, Kent, England. Vox would go on to produce some of the most iconic amplifiers of its time, with the AC15 & AC30, but they were also a large manufacturer of electric guitars
• Hoshino Gakki changes the “Salvador Ibanez” brand name to just “Ibanez.”
• D’Angelico begins to sell their own brand of strings, manufactured by the Darco String Company (owned by John D’Addario). After D’Angelico’s death in 1964, the strings continued to be sold and ownership was transferred a few times before ending up in the hands of GHS Strings

1958

• Fender releases the Jazzmaster to try to compete with Gibson in the jazz market. Fender designed the Jazzmaster single-coil pickups to be wider –  producing a more mellow sound, in an attempt to compete with Gibson’s humbucker. It was also designed with an offset body to make the guitar comfortable to play in the seated position. The guitar did not catch on with jazz players as anticipated. The guitar featured a new vibrato system, called the floating tremolo, and also incorporated separate rhythm and lead circuits – a design developed by Fender’s General Manager Forrest White on a hobby guitar in 1942.
• Gibson introduces the ES-335 thinline archtop. It was thinner than the previous thinline models at 1.75” deep and featured a solid maple center block. The ES-335 was an attempt to find a middle ground between a solidbody electric and an archtop – a warmer tone than a solid body but still capable of producing little to no feedback. While the Les Paul was a reaction to Fender’s Telecaster, the semi-hollow ES-335 was Gibson’s own groundbreaking design.
• Gibson introduces a line of modernistic guitars – including the Flying V and Explorer. For centuries, guitars were designed with variations of a figure-eight body design, but with their modernistic instruments, Gibson completely redrew the boundaries for how a guitar could look. These instruments were too far ahead of their time, however, and ended up just hanging in music stores. With less than one hundred of each model produced, they were discontinued in 1963. Because of their rarity, these guitars are worth a great deal of money to collectors today.
• After dwindling sales of the Les Paul, Gibson attempted to drum up sales by changing the finish of the guitar from gold to sunburst. This finish highlighted the beautiful flamed maple of the Les Paul’s top. The tactic did not work, however, as sales continued to decline, leaving only less than 1700 sunburst Les Pauls made from 1958-1960 in existence.
• Gibson releases new solidbody & thinline Epiphone models and redesigns some existing models – including giving several archtop electrics a thinline body. Epiphone guitars were offered to dealers who were unable to deal Gibsons due to territorial restrictions. It was not a sub-brand for Gibson, it rather filled the holes in Gibson’s line, doubling choices of features and price points for guitar buyers. Full size humbucking pickups were reserved only for Gibsons, however, to give those guitars a bit of an edge
• Gretsch introduces two new Chet Atkins models to complement the 6120 – the higher end Country Gentleman, and the more affordable Tennessean. The Country Gentleman was Gretsch’s first thinline hollowbody model and also its first to use their new “Filtertron” humbucking pickups
• Rickenbacker releases its “Capri” thinline hollowbody models
• British guitar maker, Jim Burns, partners with the Supersound Amplifier company to develop Britain’s first commercially made solidbody electric guitars & basses
• Australian company Maton releases its first electric guitars
• Samick Piano Co. Ltd. is founded in Seoul, Korea, and was later established as the Samick Music Corporation in 1987. Samick manufacturers guitars under its own brand name, but also produces guitars for other manufacturers such as Squier, Epiphone, Washburn, Hohner, and more.
• Danelectro moves its factory from Red Bank to Neptune City, New Jersey
• The Montgomery Ward Company begins selling electric guitars under the brand Airline. These guitars were manufactured by Valco, Kay, and Harmony, and were a direct competitor of Sear’s “Silvertone” brand. Airline guitars were made until 1968.

1959

• The UK ban of imported instruments is lifted, opening the door for British musicians to have access to American instruments
• Fender adds four new manufacturing buildings, giving them a total production area of approximately 54,000 square feet. They also incorporated as a company in 1959.
• Fender releases upscale versions of the Telecaster and Esquire with the Telecaster Custom & Esquire Custom. These guitars featured double-bound alder bodies (a feature common on Gibson guitars) with sunburst finishes. Fender general manager, Forrest White, reached out to Martin guitars for help in the gluing procedure for the body binding.
• The Gibson Les Paul Junior is redesigned with a double cutaway and hits a record for annual production among Les Paul models, shipping 4364 units
• Gibson releases its EB-6 bass, a six string version of its EB-2 bass. It was released to compete with the popular Danelectro six string basses
• After discontinuing the single-cutaway thinline hollowbody ES-225, Gibson releases the ES-330 model, which featured double cutaways, a tune-o-matic bridge, and trapeze tailpiece. It shared the body-style of the ES-335, however, was very different in that it was fully hollow (no solid center-block), had P-90 pickups (not humbuckers) and had a neck-body joint at the 15th fret (as opposed to the 19th fret).
• Gibson introduces the Melody Maker – its simplest and most inexpensive guitar. There were three variations of the Melody Maker – a one pickup model, a 3/4 size model, and a two pickup model introduced in 1960. Prices started at $99.50, making it less expensive than the Les Paul Junior and any guitars made by Fender.
• Jim Burns and Henry Weill team up to manufacture guitars under the Burns-Weill brand
• Hoshino Gakki opens its own factory to produce Ibanez electric guitars, and in the late 60s, Ibanez begins producing copies of Fender, Gibson, and Rickenbacker electric guitar models. These guitars appealed to novice players not wanting to shell out big bucks for the real American-made guitars.
• Paul Bigsby begins to travel and secure distributors and new orders for his Bigsby vibrato around the world. The Hofner company in West Germany began using Bigsby vibratos on their guitars beginning in 1959.

1960

• Fender releases a new bass to compliment its Precision model – the Jazz Bass. This new bass featured a slimmer neck with narrower nut width, an offset body similar to the Jazzmaster, and two single-coil pickups rather than the than the one split-coil humbucking pickup on the Precision bass.
• The Epiphone plant in Philadelphia is completely closed down and Epiphone became a full-fledged subsidiary of Gibson
• After the sunburst finish on the Les Paul didn’t garner the sales that Gibson had hoped, they opted for a complete redesign of the Les Paul in late 1960. The new design featured a thinner mahogany body with no maple top, double cutaways that were pointed, a vibrato, and a cherry red finish. Les Paul dropped his endorsement of the model in 1962 and it then became known as the SG or “solid guitar.”
• Gibson greatly expands its factory in Kalamazoo by adding a 60,000 square foot building
• Selmer UK becomes a Gibson dealer, supplying instruments for the likes of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Steve Howe, Peter Green, and more
• After a falling out with Henry Weill, Jim Burns decides to go solo and founds Ormston Burns Guitars London Ltd, which would go on to become the most successful British guitar company
• Rickenbacker releases stereo electronics called “Rick-O-Sound” on several of its deluxe models. This stereo configuration allowed each pickup to go to a separate amplifier

1961

• Fender gets in on the 6-string bass market with its Bass VI model in response to the Danelectro UB-2 bass’ popularity in being used in studios to create the “Nashville sound”
• Gibson releases its first 12-string acoustic guitar – the B-45-12, which utilized the J-45 body style. While highly regarded by 12-string players, there are relatively few that have survived due to structural issues because of the greater tension of 12 strings
• Martin releases a line of three “F series” thinline electrics based on their former line of archtop guitars. The electric line did not catch on and was discontinued in 1965
• Martin releases their first “reissue” guitar with the 12-fret 0-16NY and 00-21NY models, harkening back to the guitars that Martin was producing in the 1800s

1962

• Fender releases its new premier model – the Jaguar, which featured an extra fret (for a total of 22) and a shorter 24” scale. All other standard Fender models featured 21 frets and a 25.5” scale length.
• Roger Rossmeisl leaves Rickenbacker and takes a position at Fender. Along with Leo Fender, Rossmeisl helped develop Fender acoustic guitars. Fender acoustics were unique in that they featured bolt-on necks, the classic six-in-line tuners on a Fender headstock, and a fully adjustable bridge.
• Rickenbacker moves its factory from Los Angeles to Santa Ana, California
• Takamine Gakki Ltd. is founded in Sakashita, Japan to produce acoustic instruments, specializing in classical guitars and mandolins
• Ernie Ball establishes the Ernie Ball Corporation in Tarzana, California, to produce lighter gauge electric guitar strings. The electric guitar was transitioning from a rhythm instrument to a lead instrument, and Ball, a music store owner and guitar teacher, noticed that beginners were unable to bend strings like the lead guitar players of the day. As a result, he developed the “Slinky” line of guitar strings with lighter gauges so that guitar players could effortlessly bend strings for lead playing
• Harmony opens a newer modern factory in Chicago
• Hoshino Gakki opens its own factory to produce Ibanez electric guitars, and in the late 60s, Ibanez begins producing copies of Fender, Gibson, and Rickenbacker electric guitar models. These guitars appealed to novice players not wanting to shell out big bucks for the real American-made guitars.

1963

• Both flat-top acoustics and electric guitars begin to soar in popularity, with 700,000 guitars sold in the US
• In an attempt to compete with the Fender Jazzmaster and Jaguar, Gibson introduces the Firebird, which was designed by car designer Ray Dietrich. It had many features unusual for Gibsons, including neck-through construction, a reverse headstock with 6-on-a-side banjo tuners, and their own unique pickups (essentially mini humbuckers with no adjustable pole pieces). The guitar came in 4 configurations – the I (one pickup), III (two pickups and vibrato), V (2 pickups and deluxe vibrato) and VII (three pickups and deluxe vibrato)
• Gibson introduces its first long scale (34”) bass, the Thunderbird. It was also the first Gibson bass with a fully intonatable bridge
• The V.C. Squier Company becomes the official supplier of strings for all Fender guitars and basses

1964

• Guitar sales continue to increase in the US with 1.1 million instruments sold
• Fender making 1500 guitar per week
• Fender opens a dedicated acoustic manufacturing facility in Anaheim, California.
• Fender releases the Mustang student-model guitar. This model was available in short (22.5”) or long (24”) scale and featured two-pickups and a vibrato. It was priced above the Musicmaster and Duo Sonic guitars, but below the Telecaster
• John D’Angelico passes away and his apprentice Jimmy D’Aquisto purchases his business and moves it from Brooklyn to Long Island, New York. D’Aquisto began building models similar to D’Angelico (but with the D’Aquisto name) but over time his designs became increasingly experimental as he sought to reinvent the guitar as a modern instrument. He has been called a modern-day Stradivarius for his pioneering luthiery
• Due to the folk boom and the resulting demand for flattop acoustic guitars, Martin moves from its factory on North Street in downtown Nazareth to a new 62,000 square-foot facility in Upper Nazareth township. The factory, now located on Sycamore Street, was once a part of the original Martin family homestead, “Cherry Hill.” 
• Rickenbacker creates a line of “export guitars” for an English distributor (Rose Morris) which sold them primarily in the UK and Europe from 1964 to 1969. These guitars and basses had Rickenbacker’s standard features (not their deluxe features) and often featured traditional “f-holes” on hollowbody models instead of the cat eye design.
• Kay opens a new factory in Elk Grove Village, Illinois 

1965

• The US guitar industry hits a peak, with around 1.5 million instruments sold and sales totaling $185 million – up from $24 million in 1958.
• Fender makes $40 million in instrument sales, the company’s peak in retail sales
• On January 15th, Columbia Broadcasting Systems (CBS) purchases Fender Electric Instruments for $13,000,000. The company was subsequently renamed “Fender Musical Instruments.” CBS increased production by 45%, however, that led to a decline in quality control. Leo Fender was retained as a consultant for the company.
• Fender purchases the string manufacturer, V.C. Squier Company. Later, in 1972, Fender rebranded the strings as “Fender Strings,” and thus retired the Squier name
• Fender completes a 175,000 square foot factory extension
• The Baldwin company (US) purchases the UK’s Burns Guitars for 250,000 pounds, however, a decline in quality led to guitar production ceasing in 1970
• Gibson produces 102,333 instruments in 1965 under both the Gibson and Epiphone brands (20% of the instruments being Epiphones). This was a company record that was not broken until the 1990s
• Gibson redesigns its Firebird guitar after complaints that the Firebird’s body shape violated Fender’s patent for the Jazzmaster. The redesigned Firebird was also much cheaper and easier to produce than the original design.
• Martin introduces a new top of the line model to oust the D-28, the D-35. The D-35 featured a three-piece rosewood back as larger pieces of Brazilian rosewood were in short supply
• Martin introduces its first 12-string model – the 12-fret flattop D12-20
• F.C. Hall, owner of Electro String Instrument Corporation (manufacturers of Rickenbacker guitars), changes the name of his sales distribution company from “Radio and Television Equipment Co.” to “Rickenbacker, Inc.”
• Technology company Avnet Corporation acquires the Guild Guitar Company. The company’s founder Alfred Dronge stayed on, however, to manage the company
• Japanese company, Tokai, begins making guitars – beginning with classical, and three years later, electric
• Alvarez Guitars founded by St. Louis Music in partnership with Japanese classical guitar builder Kazuo Yairi. Their acoustic guitars range from beginner to professional models and are crafted in the Yairi factory in Kani, Japan, then imported into the US.
• Fuji Gen-Gakki builds a new factory in Matsumodo, Japan, and partners with the Hoshino Gakki company to manufacture Ibanez guitars

1966

• 1.4 million guitars are sold in the US, with almost half of the sales coming from imports. This signaled the fact that US guitar companies were facing serious competition from overseas manufacturers
• Ted McCarty leaves his position of president at Gibson, after purchasing Bigsby Accessories, Inc with Gibson’s Vice-President John Huis. McCarty moved the Bigsby company from Los Angeles to Kalamazoo, Michigan.
• Fender releases the companion to its Mustang guitar, the Mustang bass. It was aimed at the student market and featured a 30” scale length (as opposed to the full 34” scale length of the Precision and Jazz basses). It was the last guitar that Leo Fender designed for Fender Musical Instruments
• Leo Fender founds CLF Research – a business that Leo used to further his guitar design and manufacturing after selling Fender to CBS
• Forrest White resigns from Fender after refusing to sign an authorization to produce solid-state amplifiers. He felt that these products, designed by CBS engineers, were not worthy of Leo Fender’s name. The amplifiers ended up being a complete commercial failure
• Charles Kaman, owner of about 30 aerospace companies, forms Ovation Instruments. Frustrated with acoustic guitars cracking with changes in temperature and humidity, Ovation engineers designed an acoustic guitar with a one-piece parabolic body shell pressed from synthetic fibers – similar to the covering the company used for helicopter rotor blades – that was impervious to weather conditions
• Hartley Peavey founds Peavey Electronics in Meridian, Mississippi
• Yamaha releases its first flat-top acoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass guitars, and amplifiers. It also established a custom shop and a line of guitars for export to the US and other countries
• Hoshino Gakki closes its factory, due to the downturn in the Japanese guitar market, and Ibanez guitar production switched to the Teisco plant in Tokyo
• Bernardo Chavez Rico begins building flamenco and steel-string guitars in his father’s music store, Bernardo’s Guitar Shop, in Los Angeles, California. He built his first electric guitar in 1969 and later founds the guitar company, B.C. Rich

1967

• Pickup designer Seth Lover leaves Gibson and goes to work for Fender as a project engineer
• Gibson reissues the Flying V, but with a mahogany body (instead of korina), larger pickguard, and stop bar tailpiece
• The Gretsch family sells their company to Baldwin for approximately $4 million. After a serious decline in quality under Baldwin’s ownership, Gretsch guitar production ceased in 1980
• Kay is sold to Valco, but after financial difficulties, both companies collapsed in 1968.
• Nathan Daniel sells Danelectro to the MCA Universal music company for $6 million. Daniel stayed on as president of the company. MCA desired to sell to individual music retailers, and lost their Sears contract in the process. The company did not last long under the new ownership and closed in 1969.
• After apprenticing with luther Edgar Monch, auto mechanic Jean Larrivee begins building guitars full-time and founds Larrivee Guitars in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• The Ventures became unsatisfied with their relationship with Mosrite guitars and severed the relationship. This led to the folding of the Mosrite distribution company which was run by the Ventures organization
• Teisco becomes Japan’s largest guitar manufacturer, selling more than 100,000 guitars a year
• Teisco is taken over by the Kawai Corporation, and two years later guitar production is ceased
• The Ampeg company is sold to Unimusic, Inc

1968

• Fender reissues its original Precision bass and names it the “Telecaster” bass
• Roger Rossmeisl at Fender develops a new semi-hollow Telecaster, called the Telecaster Thinline. It featured a chambered solid body with a single “f-hole.” It was a much more successful instrument than Rossmeisl’s earlier Fender semi-hollow, the Coronado, which was released in 1966 and designed to compete with Gibson’s ES-335.
• Gibson reissues the single-cutaway Les Paul Goldtop and Custom. The Custom differed from the older models in that it had a maple cap on top of the mahogany body, and 2 humbuckers instead of 3
• Martin reissues the top-of-the-line D-45
• Sears begins to pull manufacturing for its “Silvertone” brand from America to Japan. The brand subsequently went defunct in 1972.
• Respected Japanese luthier, Mass Hirade, joins the Takamine company, helping to boost the quality of the brand. He later became the company president and helped Takamine break into the international guitar market
• Luthier Robert Benedetto builds his first archtop guitar. Benedetto has helped to keep the archtop guitar alive through guitar-making courses, books, and DVDs.
• Jimmy D’Aquisto partners with Swedish guitar manfacturer, Hagstrom, to design a line of archtop jazz guitars for the company. “The Jimmy” archtop guitar was debuted in 1969 and was later re-released in 1976.

1969

• Chicago Musical Instruments – the parent company of Gibson – was merged with the South American brewing company ECL. The company changed its name to Norlin in 1970, after the ECL president Norton Stevens and the CMI president’s son Arnold Berlin. 
• Epiphone production moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Matsumoto, Japan. Production and distribution of the instruments was performed by the Aria guitar factory. Traditional Epiphone models were discontinued and lower-cost instruments were available to the Japanese market only. Throughout the mid-70s and 80s, more traditional Epiphone models were being reintroduced that were then available for the world-wide market
• Martin sells over 14,000 guitars in 1969
• After becoming the Vice President and General Manager of the Musical Instrument Division under CBS’s ownership, Don Randall resigned in 1969. He went on to found his own company, Randall Amplifiers, in 1970.
• Gretsch reissues its single-cutaway Jet guitars with the “Roc Jet.” While it revived the single-cut body style, it included several updated features. Double cutaway Jets were soon discontinued
• Production of Guild Guitars is moved to a larger factory in Westerly, Rhode Island from their home in Hoboken, NJ
• Alembic Inc was founded by Owsley Stanley, Rick Turner, Ron Wickersham, and Bob Matthews as an electronics workshop in the rehearsal room of the band, the Grateful Dead, in Novato, California. Alembic began making high-end custom bass guitars in 1971, a forerunner of companies specializing in high-end basses. They used low-impedance pickups with an active onboard preamp to give a wider frequency response in the sound of the instrument, through-neck construction, exotic woods, as well as brass hardware to assist in sustain.
• The Mosrite guitar company goes bankrupt and closes its Bakersfield, California factory. Mosrite guitars never returned to a high level of production

1970

• C.F. Martin & Company enters into an agreement with the Japanese company Tokai to build Martin’s budget brand, Sigma
• Martin purchases the Darco string company, as well as the Vega Company in an attempt to release a line of high-quality banjos.
• Gretsch production is moved from Brooklyn to Booneville, Arkansas in 1970, and two years later, their offices were moved from New York to Chicago.
• Fender releases a fretless Precision Bass
• George Fullerton resigns from Fender under CBS’s ownership. He soon after took a position at Ernie Ball
• Tony Zemaitis begins building custom guitars in Britain. Zemaitis guitars feature elaborately engraved aluminum plates that cover the entire front of the body. Zemaitis continued to build other electric and acoustic instruments on a custom-basis until his retirement in 2000.
• Michael Millard, while working at the Gurian Guitars shop in New York City, begins building his own acoustic guitars, which he branded Froggy Bottom. In 1974, Millard left Gurian to build custom-order Froggy Bottom guitars full-time, first in Richmond, New Hampshire, and later in Chelsea, Vermont.
• Luthier Ervin Somogyi begins building steel string and classical guitars. Somogyi went on to pioneer lighter braced steel-string acoustic guitars built for expressive fingerstyle playing. He is often titled the “Godfather of Modern Lutherie” as he chooses talented young luthiers after an audition process to apprentice with him for 2 to 3 years at his Oakland, California workshop

1971

• Martin has a record production year, selling 22,637 guitars, 80% of which were dreadnoughts. The company would not again reach those production numbers until 1997
• Fender discontinues producing its own acoustic guitars, and outsources the instruments to be made elsewhere with the Fender name
• William “Grit” Laskin begins an apprenticeship in Toronto with luthier Jean Larrivee
• Yamaha moves its guitar production from Japan to a factory in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

1972

• Former Fender executives Forrest White and Tom Walker found Music Man in Orange County, California. The company was originally called Tri-Sonix, then Musitek, and then they finally settled on the Music Man name in 1974. Leo Fender’s company CLF Research had the exclusive agreement to build Music Man instruments
• Gibson reissues the single-cutaway Les Paul Special and the 1954 Les Paul Custom
• Gibson reissues the Firebird
• Alfred Dronge, founder of Guild guitars, dies in a plane crash traveling from his home in New Jersey to the Guild factory in Rhode Island
• B.C. Rich releases their first production electric guitar, the Seagull, which featured an innovative shape, neck-through construction, and active electronics. The company’s designs over the years became more and more extreme, catering to metal guitarists
• Robert Godin founds Godin Guitars in La Patrie, Quebec, Canada. What started as a small operation has grown to include six different guitar brands including: acoustic guitar manufacturers Seagull, Simon & Patrick, Art & Lutherie, and Norman; classical guitar manufacturer La Patrie; and electric guitar and bass manufacturer Godin. Godin has been on the forefront of innovation of hybrid guitars that incorporate both acoustic and electric sounds. They also design and manufacture TRIC cases, which are made of expanded polypropylene and are incredibly lightweight yet strong.
• James Tyler begins repairing guitars in his garage in Van Nuys, California. He later worked for famous guitar shop Norman’s Rare Guitars as their repairman, and opened his own repair shop in 1980. In addition to his repair business, he began building custom guitars for select customers.
• James Goodall begins building custom acoustic guitars in San Diego, California. He sourced his early woods from American Dream Guitars in Lemon Grove. Goodall is a family run company now based in Fort Bragg, California – both James and his son, Luke, build the guitars.
• Semie Mosley was able to negotiate to get back into the Mosrite guitar factory and began building Mosrite guitars on a small scale, distributed by the Kustom amp company

1973

• Bob Taylor accepts a job out of high school as a luthier in Sam & Gene Radding’s shop “American Dream” in Lemon Grove, California. He built custom acoustic guitars under the shop’s brand.
• Roger Rossmeisl leaves Fender and returns to his homeland of Germany. He passed away in 1979 at the age of 52.
• Gibson moves its string division to a dedicated facility in Elgin, Illinois
• Gretsch reissues the single-cutaway White Falcon
• Gretsch’s Booneville, Arkansas factory suffers from two separate fires in 1973.
• Bill Collings establishes Collings Guitars, building custom one-off guitars in a small workshop in Austin, Texas
• William “Grit” Laskin sets up his own acoustic guitar shop in Toronto after finishing his apprenticeship with Jean Larrivee
• Paul Hamer and Jol Dantzig, owners of the vintage guitar shop Northern Prairie Music in Wilmette, Illinois, establish Hamer Guitars. Dissatisfied with the current quality of Gibson guitars, Hamer and Dantzig sought to build guitars that recaptured the quality of the guitars from the 50s. They are widely considered to be the first “boutique” vintage-style guitar makers catering to professional musicians.
• Korean company Soo Doh Piano begins producing guitars for foreign brand name companies. The company was later renamed Cor-Tek and produces over a million guitars each year in its factories in China and Indonesia. Cor-Tek released its own brand of guitars (Cort) in 1982.
• Hoshina Gakki begins to design their own unique guitars under the Ibanez brand

1974

• Sam Radding decides to sell the “American Dream” guitar shop, and employees Bob Taylor, Kurt Listug and Steve Schemmer purchase the shop and tools. They then established their business as Westland Music, making guitars under the brand “Taylor.” The company began making dreadnaught and jumbo guitars as custom orders. Taylor guitars began to be known for their playability, due to skinny neck shapes (feeling more like an electric guitar) and utilizing a bolt-on neck for acoustic guitars – making neck angle adjustments much easier.
• Between 1974 and 1984 production of Gibson guitars was shifted from Kalamazoo to Nashville, Tennessee. Quality of the early instruments built in Nashville were plagued by climate-control problems in the humid South and inexperienced workers. The Kalamazoo plant was temporarily kept operating as the Gibson Custom Shop.
• Car mechanic Travis Bean went into business with Gary Kramer to produce guitars with aluminum necks. The guitars did sustain very well, but were very heavy. The Sun Valley, California business did not last long, however, closing up shop in 1979 and only producing 3650 instruments.
• George Lowden founds Lowden Guitars in Northern Ireland
• Wayne Charvel opens Charvel’s Guitar Repair in Azusa, California, repairing and hot-rodding Fender guitars, as well as manufacturing aftermarket guitar parts.
• Luthier John Monteleone begins building custom mandolins and officially opened a shop in Bayshore, New York in 1976. He later began building flat-top and then archtop guitars, with innovative features such as sound ports in the sides of the guitar and adjustable tailpieces that could slightly alter string tension. Monteleone was mentored by Jimmy D’Aquisto and Mario Maccaferri, and builds some of the finest archtop guitars and mandolins available.
• Canadian luthier Linda Manzer begins an apprenticeship with Jean Larrivee. She later apprenticed with Jimmy D’Aquisto and went on to build custom flat-top, archtop, and harp guitars.
• After a short tenure with Ernie Ball, George Fullerton joins his former Fender co-workers Forrest White, Tom Walker, and Leo Fender at Music Man

1975

• Gibson granted a patent for its headstock design – a design they had been using since 1907. This was the only trademark Gibson had for a production configuration (headstock or body shape)
• Gibson reissues the single-cutaway sunburst Les Paul Standard
• Gibson opens a second plant in Nashville, Tennessee
• Martin expands its factory and establishes its own sawmill
• Harmony Company goes out of business, largely due to foreign (mostly Japanese) competition for budget-priced guitars. Over the course of its long history, the company produced about 10 million guitars
• Hisatake Shibuya opens a shop called Electric Sound Products (ESP) in Tokyo, Japan, providing custom replacement parts for guitars. He also began producing guitars for the Japanese market, but did not have a standard line of guitars until the early 1980s
• Tokai begins making high-quality replicas of Martin guitars, and two years later, begins building Fender and Gibson replicas at a fraction of the cost of the US made instruments. These are often termed “lawsuit guitars”
• Mike McGuire and Al Carness found Valley Arts Guitar in North Hollywood, California. The shop originally started as music store and repair shop, however, after catching the attention of many LA studio musicians, Valley Arts began building its own custom electric guitars in 1977. Many of their guitars were “superstrats,” while others were highly modified takes on the Stratocaster and Telecaster.

1976

• Gibson reissues the Explorer, but with a mahogany body (instead of korina) and gold hardware
• Martin reissues the pre-1945 Herringbone D-28, and names the model the HD-28
• Luthier Richard Hoover and repairmen Will Davis and Bruce Ross found the Santa Cruz Guitar Company in Santa Cruz, California
• Taylor Guitars establishes a numbering system for their guitar models (beginning with the 810, 815, and 855 – 8 for the series, 1 for a 6-string or 5 for a 12-string, and 0 for a dreadnaught or 5 for a jumbo) and began using serial numbers. They also began using Indian Rosewood rather than Brazilian Rosewood because of the scarcity of that wood
• David Schecter founds Schecter Guitar Research in Van Nuys, California, at first manufacturing replacement guitar parts. in 1979, Schecter began producing its own full-assembled guitars
• Seymour Duncan gets into the replacement pickup market and introduces his JB humbucker
• Rob Turner founds the EMG pickup company which is known for producing active guitar pickups. His EMG 81 & 85 models were released in 1981 and were a huge success with hard rock and metal guitarists
• 20 year old luthier Paul Reed Smith builds a guitar for famed guitarist Peter Frampton – the first he built to feature his bird inlays. Although he had only built 17 guitars, his client list included Ted Nugent, Bruce Springsteen’s bassist, and Peter Frampton. Most of his guitar builds were in the style of single and double-cutaway mahogany Les Paul Juniors and Specials
• After a falling out with Travis Bean, Gary Kramer founds his own guitar company, the Kramer Guitar Corporation, in Neptune, New Jersey. His initial models were modifications of Bean’s aluminum neck instruments.
• Carlos Santana endorses and plays a Yamaha SG2000 electric guitar. This brought some legitimacy to Japanese guitars, as most were seen as cheap knockoffs of American instruments.

1977

• Gibson’s parent company, Norlin, files a legal complaint against Ibanez for using their headstock design. Subsequently, Ibanez began focusing solely on producing their own unique models rather than copying American companies
• Floyd Rose, a jeweler, begins making and selling “locking trem bridges.” This addressed the issue of vibrato systems not returning to pitch. He was awarded a patent for them in 1979, and went on to license the unit with companies like Fender, Washburn, Jackson, Ibanez, and others.
• Larrivee Guitars moves from Toronto, Ontario to Victoria, British Columbia in order to gain easier access to Sitka Spruce and find a climate more suitable for building guitars. They later moved to the mainland of Vancouver in 1983
• Fretted Industries, Inc acquires the defunct Washburn name. While the company is based in Chicago, the guitars were produced largely in Japan, then later Korea, China, and Indonesia
• Gary Kramer decides to sell his interest in the Kramer Guitar Corporation and move back to the West Coast. The company continued building guitars and went on to be a major manufacturer catering to heavy metal players (including Eddie Van Halen) in the 1980s with its “Superstrat” and other models. Kramer became the best selling electric guitar brand in the mid 80s, but the company only lasted until it 1991, closing due to financial difficulties.
• Tom Anderson goes to work for Schecter Guitar Research
• In Evanston, Illinois, 19-year-old Dean Zelinsky begins building “Dean Guitars,” focusing on flashy, high-quality stage guitars
• Hamer introduces its first production model guitar – the “Sunburst.” This guitar featured a double-cut Les Paul Junior body-style with a maple cap, Fender-style bridge, and DiMarzio humbucking pickups.
• Jim Olson founds Olson Guitars in St. Paul Minnesota. Olson is a one-man operation and focuses on high-quality flat-top guitars. His big break came in 1989 when he sold 3 guitars to James Taylor – since that time, there has been significant wait times and expense for customers to get an Olson built.
• Charvel moves to a new 1200 square foot facility in San Dimas, California

1978

• Wayne Charvel sells his shop and guitar brand to Grover Jackson, one of his shop employees, for $40,000.
• Oscar Schmidt International Inc sold to Fretted Industries Inc – which was later renamed Washburn International
• Peavey introduces its first guitars – the T-60 electric guitar and T40 bass. These were the first production instruments built using computer-controlled carving (CNC) machines

1979

• Leo Fender partners with George Fullerton and Dale Hyatt to found the G&L Guitar Company in Fullerton, California. Leo’s company CLF Research produced instruments for both G&L and Music Man
• Ned Steinberger establishes Steinberger Guitars in Brooklyn, New York, with co-founders Stan Jay, Hap Kuffner, and Bob Young. Steinberger’s radical  designs include the XL2 headless bass with a body made of a blend of carbon and fibers.
• Martin establishes its Custom Shop
• Chet Atkins parts ways with Gretsch after quality began falling under Baldwin’s ownership and they refused to entertain any of his new guitar ideas. He subsequently worked with Gibson and released several models
• Charvel unveil their first guitars at NAMM. Their line mostly featured Stratocaster style bodies with bolt-on necks, humbucking pickups, and tremolo systems.
• Luthier Roger Sadowsky begins modifying vintage Fender basses in New York City for professional players. He later began building his own custom-ordered Fender-style basses, specializing in very quiet electronics utilized hum-canceling and shielding techniques. Sadowsky eventually expanded his instrument offerings to include electric and archtop guitars

1980

• Guitarist Randy Rhodes contacted Grover Jackson (who owned Charvel’s Guitar Repair) about making him a guitar. The resulting guitar was the Concorde (patterned after a Flying V), and because it was a departure from the Charvel guitars that Jackson was selling, he decided to put his own name, “Jackson,” on the guitar. Rhodes popularity skyrocketed with his band and soon orders for Jackson guitars were coming in. After Rhodes tragic death in 1982, the model was renamed the Jackson Randy Rhodes. Jackson guitars became characterized by their neck-through construction, whereas, Charvel guitars featured bolt-on necks.
• Charvel adds another manufacturing facility in nearby Glendora, California
• Paul Reed Smith builds a guitar for his hero, Santana. The guitar included a curly maple top on a double-cutaway mahogany body, 2 humbucking pickups, and a vibrato. Santana’s high profile usage of Paul’s guitars was critical to his eventual success

1981

• William (Bill) Shultz becomes Fender’s new president, coming from the Yamaha Corporation. Shultz restructured the company, and rebuilt Fender’s reputation for quality and innovation
• Martin releases DC-28 and MC-28 models – the first Martin guitars to feature cutaways
• The Kluson Manufacturing Company goes out of business after several of their major clients such as Gibson and Fender switched to Schaller tuning machines

1982

• John Decker designs a flat-top acoustic made of carbon-fiber (graphite) in order to withstand the elements. He subsequently formed the Rainsong Guitar Company in Maui, Hawaii.
• CBS sets up Fender Japan to compete with oriental companies who were producing well-made copies of American guitars. The guitars were made by Fuji Gen-Gakki (makers of Ibanez guitars).
• Fender repurposes the “Squier” brand for its new budget line of instruments manufactured in Japan. Models included the Stratocaster, Telecaster, Precision and Jazz basses. Production later moved to Korea in 1988, China in 1995, and Indonesia in 1996.
• Fender releases ’52 Telecaster and ’57 & ’62 Stratocaster reissues to meet the demand for vintage Fender instruments
• Gibson sales fall 30% due to competition from Japanese makers as well as the rising popularity of Superstrats
• Gibson reissues its dot-neck ES-335 (originally available from 1958-1962)
• In the 1980s acoustic guitar sales plummeted with Martin selling only 3000 guitars – its worst sales in over 40 years
• Kramer begins putting Floyd Rose vibratos on their instruments and acted as the Floyd Rose manufacturing agent and US distributor
• Warwick Company founded in Bavaria, Germany by Hans-Peter Wilfer. The company is most known for its innovative bass guitars using exotic woods 

1983

• Bob Taylor and Kurt Listug buy out Steve Schemmer and change the name of their company from “Westland Music Company” to “Taylor-Listug, Inc”
• Larry Breedlove begins working at Taylor Guitars
• Martin releases its “Vintage Series” guitars which shared features similar to their guitars from the 1930s
• Epiphone production is moved from Japan to Soeul, Korea. The guitars were manufactured by the Samick guitar company.
• Acoustic guitar manufacturer Larrivee introduces a line of solidbody electric guitars due to waning demand in the market for acoustics
• Graph Tech Guitar Labs is founded by Dave Dunwoodie in British Columbia, Canada. He sought to fix the problem of string binding in traditional guitar nuts made out of bone or plastic, and invented the first self-lubricating guitar nut out of graphite and other materials. Graph Tech went on to become the world’s largest nut and saddle manufacturing company, working with companies such as Fender, Gibson, Taylor, Godin, and Yamaha.
• Fodera Guitars established by luthier Vinny Fodera and bass player Joey Lauricella in Brooklyn, New York. Fodera makes solid-body electric guitars, but is most known for their high quality bass guitars. Fodera basses feature high-quality preamps designed by Mike Pope

1984

• Gibson sells off its original manufacturing facilities in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Many of the factory workers did not want to relocate to Nashville, and so a group of employees, led by former plant manager Jim Duerloo, purchased the factory and began a new company – Heritage Guitars – building instruments based upon original Gibson designs. Heritage Guitars was incorporated in 1985
• Gibson redesigns four of its flat-top acoustic guitars – the J-45, J-200, Hummingbird, and Dove – restoring them to vintage specifications
• Tom Anderson leaves Schecter and founds Tom Anderson Guitar Works in Newbury Park, California. At first, the company began building pickups and guitar parts for other companies, but in 1987, released their own line of guitars. 
• Music Man is sold to the Ernie Ball Company on March 7, 1984
• After leaving Music Man, Forrest White becomes the Vice President and General Manager of Rickenbacker. White helped Rickenbacker revise their adjustable bridge and redesign their double neck truss rod, in addition to helping to improve productivity, product design, and quality control.
• F.C. Hall retires from Rickenbacker, and his son, John Hall, takes over the business. John Hall subsequently combined the distribution and manufacturing of Rickenbacker guitars into one company called Rickenbacker International Corporation (RIC). Hall also opened foreign offices in Japan and England for direct distribution in those overseas.
• Rickenbacker launches a Vintage Series of instruments modeled after their early instruments that were played by famous artists such as the Beatles, the Who, etc.
• Rudy’s Music repairman, John Suhr, begins building guitars in New York City. He and Rudy Pensa teamed up to sell guitars under the Pensa-Suhr brand
• Jimmy D’Acquisto partners with Fender to design an archtop guitar for the company

1985

• CBS sells Fender Musical Instruments to a group of employees and investors, including Fender’s president William Shultz, for $12.5 million – half a million dollars less than what they purchased the company for 20 years earlier. CBS did not include the Fullerton factories and sold them separately. 
• Fender acquires a 14,000 foot factory in Corona, California, however, until they could get things up a running, all Fender instruments (except vintage reissues) were produced in Japan until 1987.
• Martin adds adjustable truss rods to their guitars
• Paul Reed Smith founds PRS Guitars and moves into a factory in Annapolis, Maryland
• Fred W. Gretsch, great-grandson of the founder of Gretsch, regains control of the company and sets up headquarters in Savannah, Georgia. Large scale guitar production resumed in 1989, with the models being manufactured by the Japanese company “Terada Musical Instrument Co Ltd”
• Grover Jackson partners with International Music Corporation and moves Jackson Guitars to a new 28,000 square foot facility in Ontario, California. At the same time, he shifted the Charvel brand to Japanese-made guitars.
• Don Grosh goes to work for Valley Arts Guitar and becomes the shop foreman

1986

• Gibson guitars was within 3 months of closing its doors when 3 Harvard Business School graduates (Henry E. Juszkiewicz, David H. Berryman, and Gary A. Zebrowski) bought the company for $5,000,000. They appointed Henry Juszkiewicz as CEO and David Berryman as president, and changed the name of the company to the “Gibson Guitar Corporation.” The former owner of Gibson, Norlin, had reported losses of $158 million over the previous 10 years
• Gibson splits the Custom Shop into a different division of the organization
• Gibson reissues the single-cutaway Les Paul Junior and the 1962 SG Standard
• Gibson introduces a “Chet Atkins Country Gentleman” model, and 4 years later, introduced a “Chet Atkins Tennessean” model
• Epiphone releases Flying V and Explorer models
• Fender reissues the Jazzmaster with two Japanese models – the 62 & 66 vintage reissues
• Dean Zelinsky sells Dean Guitars to Oscar Medeiros of Tropical Music, who focused on selling the guitars to Latin bands overseas
• Dieter Gölsdorf (a guitar hardware designer) founds Duesenberg Guitars in Hannover, Germany. Their guitars feature Art Deco design and in-house high-quality hardware with their noiseless P90 pickups, Z-Tuners, and Deluxe Tremola vibrato system.
• Pioneering bassist Anthony Jackson began working with Ken Smith’s former assistant, Vinnie Fodera, to create 6-string basses with a 36” scale length.

1987

• Fender restarts US production and releases its American Standard line
• Fender opens its Custom Shop in Corona, California. Many of the ideas, features, and production techniques developed in the Custom Shop eventually made their way to the Fender production line instruments
• Fender opens an additional factory in Ensenada, Mexico, that would go on to produce many of its lower priced instruments
• Taylor Guitars were increasing in popularity and in need of more factory space. They opened a new 4700 square foot factory in Santee, California to keep up with the demand
• Gibson acquires Steinberger
• Schechter sold to Hisatake Shibuya, the owner of ESP Guitars
• James Tyler releases his first official electric guitar model the “Studio Elite” as well as his trademark headstock design. The Studio Elite was a modified Fender Stratocaster-type guitar.
• Lollar Pickups is founded in Tacoma, Washington, by renowned luthier and pickup-expert Jason Lollar. Lollar produces boutique aftermarket pickups in a variety of formats

1988

• Kramer becomes the best selling guitar brand in the United States in the above and below $500 category
• Tom Anderson Guitar Works becomes the first company to incorporate CNC machines into the guitar-building process
• Fender releases its first artist signature guitars with the Eric Clapton and Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocasters
• Kaman Music Corporation purchases Hamer Guitars
• PRS releases its first model with a bolt-on neck – the CE (Classic Electric)

1989

• From 1972 until 1989, guitar sales drop by nearly 50%. This was due to many factors such as the oversaturation of the guitar market caused by the guitar boom of the mid-60s, declining quality by major manufacturers such as Fender and Gibson, and changing music styles to disco, synth-driven pop music, and hip hop.
• Gibson opens a new plant in Bozeman, Montana to produce its acoustic instruments, as the humid-climate in Nashville was not conducive to building acoustics
• Epiphone releases a Les Paul model. This allowed players to have achieve the look and sound of the Les Paul without paying higher Gibson prices
• Epiphone releases a Chet Atkins Country Gentleman model
• Fender produces its first Mexican-made instruments
• Taylor Guitars begin making their own instrument cases
• Martin opens a factory in Navajoa, Mexico to produce strings and accessories. It began producing the Martin backpacker guitar in 1992, and later began producing Martin’s inexpensive acoustic line of instruments
• Bill Collings moves to a larger workshop and hires two assistants. After this move, Collings Guitars began to take off
• Grover Jackson sells Charvel/Jackson to IMC (International Music Corporation). Jackson went on to later work with Washburn and Friedman.
• Vega brand name acquired by Deering Banjos
• Fralin Pickups is founded by pickup-repairman Lindy Fralin in Richmond, Virginia. The company produces high-end aftermarket pickups for many different styles of guitars. Fralin has innovated many hum-canceling designs for single-coil pickups
• Luthier Richard Hoover takes sole ownership of the Santa Cruz Guitar Company after buying out partners Will Davis and Bruce Ross
• Guitar repair and tooling company, Stewart MacDonald, purchases the Waverly Musical Products Co Inc after the company went defunct in 1981. Stew-Mac then began manufacturing guitar machine heads under the Waverly name

1990

• Vox sold to the Japanese company, Korg
• Musician and guitar instructor Gerd Anke with his partner Michael Dubach found the company Plektron in Berlin, Germany, which builds PLEK machines. These are CNC machines that analyze a guitar’s frets and make minute adjustments so that the fretwork is perfectly consistent. The goal is to get the best possible string action for each instrument.

1991

• G&L sold to BBE Sound after Leo Fender’s death earlier that same year
• Fender moves their headquarters from Corona, CA to Scottsdale, AZ. The headquarters housed sales, marketing, and administration.
• Due to its utilization of CNC technology and streamlining its manufacturing, Taylor was able to release the first all solid wood american built guitar for under $1000 with the 410 model. It was priced at $998 with a Taylor hardshell case. The guitar was a huge success, with it accounting for 25% of Taylor’s guitar sales by the end of 1991.
• Gibson reissues the 1958 Korina Flying V
• Epiphone releases an SG model
• The D’Angelico String Company (owned by GHS Strings) commissions a limited run of D’Angelico archtop replicas by luthiers Arturo Valdez and Michael Lewis to promote their strings. 36 instruments were made over a 16 year period
• In December of 1991, CPA Martin Truman, along with business associate Jeff Eimer, approached GHS Strings (owners of the D’Angelico brand) about manufacturing D’Angelico instruments on a large scale. Truman established Archtop Enterprises, Inc and contracted former Gibson luthiers of Heritage guitars to construct the instruments, which would be branded “D’Angelico II.” These instruments co-existed with GHS’ D’Angelico USA Replica guitars, but only lasted until the year 2000.
• Under new ownership, Epiphone sales had risen from $1 million in 1986 to $10 million in 1991

1992

• Dana Bourgeois founds Bourgeois Guitars in Lewiston, Maine
• Taylor guitar employees Larry Breedlove and Steve Henderson found the Breedlove Guitar Company in Bend, Oregon. Their acoustic flat-top guitars feature a graduated top and innovative bridge truss system
• Taylor Guitars opens a new 25,000 square foot manufacturing facility in El Cajon, California
• Parker Guitars established in Wilmington, Massachusetts, backed by the Korg Company. Ken Parker, with the assistance of Larry Fishman, releases one of the first “hybrid” guitars, the Fly, which can produce both acoustic and electric guitar sounds. Parker guitars used ultra-lightweight body woods such as spruce, poplar, or basswood, which were then reinforced by a composite on the back of the guitar for strength. The fingerboard was also made of composite to strengthen the neck which virtually had no heel, in order to gain better access to upper frets. On the fingerboard was a new kind of fret material – stainless steel – which is much more durable than traditional nickel-silver frets.
• Gretsch introduces its first vintage reissue – the 6120-1960 model
• Barry Gibson relaunches the Burns Guitar brand, hiring Jim Burns on as a consultant until Burns’ death in 1998
• Semie Mosley passes away but his daughter Dana, a luthier, carried on making Mosrite guitars
• Qian Ni, an accomplished flautist from Beijing, China, founds Eastman Strings. The company builds high-quality violins, violas, cello, basses, as well as mandolins, banjos, ukuleles, wind instruments, and acoustic and electric guitars.

1993

• Gibson releases its “Historic Collection” which included reissue guitars with exacting details of how they were made in the 50s and 60s, down to screws, wiring, and exact dimensions
• Gibson reissues the 1958 Korina Explorer
• WD Guitar Products purchases the Kluson name and reissues their tuners and hardware for use on vintage reissue instruments and more
• TV Jones Inc is founded by guitar repairman Tom Jones. Jones was contracted to build filtertron style pickups for Gretsch’s Brian Setzer signature model, and later became a consultant for the company – designing guitars and pickups.
• Samick purchases Valley Arts Guitar
• Don Grosh leaves Valley Arts Guitar and starts his own shop, Grosh Guitars in San Clarita, California, mostly making high-quality versions of Telecasters and Stratocasters.

1994

• Martin creates 66 replicas of Gene Autrey’s D-45 for sale – Martin’s first Signature model for a living performer
• Renowned luthier and Larry Breedlove’s brother, Kim Breedlove, joins Breedlove guitars as a master builder. Larry Breedlove leaves the company shortly thereafter to follow a love interest, and returns to Taylor Guitars
• PRS Guitars hires Ted McCarty as a consultant
• Gibson acquires the rights to the Dobro name and later produces Dobros under their Epiphone brand

1995

• Luthiers Jeff Huss and Mark Dalton team up to found Huss & Dalton Guitars in Staunton, Virginia
• The Guild Guitar company is purchased by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
• Gibson releases its first artist signature Les Paul, the Jimmy Page model
• Jimmy D’Aquisto passes away, marking the end of D’Aquisto archtop guitars
• PRS Guitars moves into a new factory in Stevensville, Maryland
• John Suhr goes to work for the Fender Custom Shop as a senior master builder
• Dennis Fano, a repairman at Matt Ulmanov Guitars in NYC, begins building custom guitars for clients
• The world’s largest guitar factory, PT Cort, is opened in Surabaya, Indonesia. The ten-building factory produces over one million guitars and amplifiers per year in a variety of quality-levels and across a wide variety of well-known guitar brands such as Cort, PRS, Ibanez, Squier, Fender, Gretsch, Schecter, Musicman, Jackson, Lakland, EVH, and Strandberg. It also has a pickup factory which manufactures 8000 pickups per day

1996

• PRS establishes a custom shop producing their “Private Stock” instruments. The shop was headed up by luthier Joe Knaggs
• Martin ships out over 22,000 guitars. The highest number since 1971’s record

1997

• John Suhr leaves the Fender Custom Shop and founds his own company, Suhr Guitars/JS Technologies, with Steve Smith in Lake Elsinore, California
• Gibson Guitars purchases Kramer Guitars out of bankruptcy
• Tampa, Florida based company, Armadillo Enterprises, under the leadership of Elliot Rubinson, purchases the Dean Guitars trade name. Rubinson expanded the product range and after securing several artist endorsements, the brand’s popularity increased
• Noted guitar and amp tech Joe Naylor founds Reverend Guitars in Detroit, Michigan, producing electric guitars and basses with unique designs, pickup configurations, and electronics.
• Larrivee produces the first all-solid wood high-end guitar built in North America for under $800 – the D-03

1998

• Fender builds a new state-of-the-art factory in Corona, California
• Fender purchases the DeArmond brand name
• Martin makes its largest factory expansion in history – adding 90,000 square feet
• Taylor expands its facilities with a 44,000 square foot building next to its current factory
• The Evets Corporation of San Clemente, California purchases the rights to use the Danelectro brand name and relaunches classic Danelectro and Silvertone models. The instruments were made in Korea and were very popular with 100,000 guitars sold in the first year.

1999

• The Gretsch Guitar Company purchases Bigsby Accessories from Ted McCarty
• Fender reissues the 1962 Jaguar as a part of their American Vintage Reissue Series
• Brenden Cohen, John Ferolito Jr., and Steve Pisani purchase the D’Angelico Guitars trademark
• Bob Benedetto enters into an agreement with the Fender Custom Shop to produce his archtop guitars.

2000

• Gibson opens a new manufacturing plant in Memphis, Tennessee to manufacture its Flying V, Explorer, Firebird, EDS-1275, and non-custom shop ES guitars.
• Taylor opens a new factory in Tecate, Mexico, initially to produce its cases, however, it wasn’t long before the Baby Taylor series and later entry-level models were produced at the Mexico factory
• PRS launches a new body shape – its single-cut, which was similar in look and construction to a Les Paul
• Squier becomes the number one selling guitar brand in the world in terms of units sold

2001

• Country music icon Chet Atkins passes away
• Gibson sues PRS to cease production of their single-cut model, as it closely resembled a Les Paul. Gibson ultimately lost the lawsuit in 2006 after taking it to the Supreme Court
• PRS launches its first overseas model (made in Korea) – the Santana SE. The guitar was manufactured by World Musical Inst. Co. under license by PRS.
• Fender closes the Guild factory in Westerly, Rhode Island and moves production of the guitars to Corona, California
• Bradley Clark and Adam Cole found Cole Clark Guitars in Melbourne, Australia. They are the only major manufacturer to feature a spanish heel on their flattop guitars, meaning that the neck extends inside the body all the way to the soundhole. The company also focuses on using all sustainable and local wood sources, as well as the goal to have the most natural sounding acoustic guitar pickup on the market.
• Michael Robinson founds Eastwood Guitars in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Eastwood manufacturers vintage-style electric guitars modeled after brands such as Valco, National, Supro, Harmony, Mosrite, Tiesco, and Ovation. They also purchased the defunct Airline brand and resurrected the guitars with some modern improvements. Eastwood guitars are made in three different factories in Korea and China.
• Fano Guitars is founded by guitar repairman Dennis Fano in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. Fano sought to build electric guitars that incorporated a fusion of elements from Fender, Gibson, Rickenbacker, and Gretsch. 
• Samick purchases the rights to the Silvertone brand. They later released the Silvertone classic series in 2013, reissuing many classic Silvertone electric guitars. In 2015, they released a line of Silvertone acoustic guitar reissues as well.
• Canadian company Larrivee opens a factory in the United States – in Oxnard, California. Their satin-finished guitars were built in Vancouver and their gloss-finished instruments were made in Oxnard.

2002

• The Fender Musical Instrument Corporation purchases the Jackson and Charvel guitar brand names
• Matt McPherson, owner of Mathews Archery, applies the principles of compound archery bows to the concept of an acoustic guitar and founds McPherson Guitars in Sparta, Wisconsin. McPherson’s goal was to allow the guitar top to vibrate as freely as possible, and included unique features to accomplish this such as: an offset sound hole, a cantilevered neck that does not touch the top, and a complex bracing system that doesn’t have any two pieces of wood touching.
• Gibson purchases the Valley Arts Guitar brand name and opens a music store, repair shop, and small manufacturer of guitars in Nashville, Tennessee. Al Carness managed the store, while Mike McGuire became operations manager of the Gibson Custom division. The store closed in 2005.
• ThroBak pickups founded by Jon Gundry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. ThroBak specializes in painstakingly replicating Gibson’s PAF and P-90 pickups from the 1950s. They own pickup winding machines from Gibson’s Kalamazoo factory that were using in the 1950s. ThroBak also produces guitar pedals, strings, and aged hardware.

2003

• Fender attempts to trademark its three most famous body shapes – the Telecaster, Stratocaster, and Precision Bass. The trademark was opposed by 17 other guitar builders and ultimately the trademark was denied
• Fender is granted the exclusive rights to develop, produce, market, and distribute Gretsch Guitars. Fender subsequently revamped the entire Gretsch guitar line
• Gretsch releases more affordable versions of their classic electric guitars with their “Electromatic” line
• Korg sells Parker Guitars to the U.S. Music Corporation, and most of the guitar manufacturing was moved overseas
• Bill Nash founds Nash Guitars in Olympia, Washington. He specializes in aged guitars modeled after Fenders and some Gibsons, and is the largest independent builder of aged guitars in the world.

2004

• Epiphone moves production to China and opens its own factory in Qingdao
• Gretsch opens a US Custom Shop in Fender’s Factory in Corona, California
• German company Duesenberg Guitars opens a second factory in Fullerton, California.

2005

• James Tyler begins winding their own pickups for their guitars
• Grosh Guitars moves from San Clarita, California, to Broomfield, Colorado.

2006

• In order to compete with the growing boutique acoustic guitar market, Bob Taylor creates a boutique line of Taylor guitars called “R. Taylor.” These guitars were built in the Taylor factory, but were individually crafted by luthiers who could take the time and attention that could not be accomplished in a large-scale manufacturing environment. The line was discontinued in 2011.
• Martin produces 82,000 guitars in a year
• Reverend Guitars moves all of its guitar and bass production to the Mirr factory in South Korea
• Bob Benedetto ends his seven-year agreement with Fender and opens a small manufacturing facility in Savannah, Georgia to produce a full line of archtop guitars
• Andy Elliott founds Elliott Guitars in Hiddenite, NC. Elliott produces   high-quality Fender-style electric guitars – even winding their own pickups to ensure the utmost quality of sound

2007

• Gretsch acquires the rights to once again use Chet Atkins’ name on their guitars
• Guitarist Eddie Van Halen teams up with Fender to create his own instrument brand, EVH
• Fender acquires the Kaman Music Corporation, which owned Ovation and Hamer Guitars
• Montgomery Ward’s brand “Recording King” is revived by Hayward, California company, The Music Link

2008

• Epiphone opens a second factory in Qingdao, China
• Guitar repairmen Tim Thelen and Bill Henss found Bilt Guitars in Des Moines, Iowa. Bilt builds custom guitars and also ventures into unconventional features such as building effects into the guitar itself
• Yamaha moves its guitar production from Taiwan to China

2009

• Les Paul passes away
• Strandberg Guitarworks is founded by Ola Strandberg in Uppsala, Sweden, with the goal of producing guitars as ergonomic as possible. Stranberg guitars are headless with fanned frets and a trademark EndurNeck profile that has a flat back instead of a rounded profile which encourages proper hand positioning
• Taylor starts a Build to Order program to offer customers a chance to order a custom made guitar
• PRS opens a new factory adjacent to its existing one which had five times the space of the original factory
• PRS designer and luthier, Joe Knaggs, leaves PRS to start his own guitar building company – Knaggs Guitars, in Greensboro, Maryland
• PRS introduces a line of acoustic guitars. 
• Tom Bedell founds Bedell Guitars in Bend, Oregon. The guitars are sustainably sourced and custom-built for customers.

2010

• Due to high manufacturing costs, PRS changed its tact for its acoustic guitar models – offering only a budget Korean SE line, and also a high-end Private Stock option
• Ken and Penny Haas purchase Reverend Guitars from Joe Naylor, and greatly expand the number of electric guitar and bass models. Naylor continued on with the company as product designer and technical support.
• Dennis Fano makes a production deal with Premier Builders Guild of Arroyo Grande, California, in order to ramp up production of Fano Guitars
• Relish Guitars founded by Pirmin Giger and Silvan Kung in Neuenkirch, Switzerland. Their electric guitars incorporate many innovative features such as magnetically swappable pickups, bodies consisting of an aluminum core and wood top and back, a touch pad in lieu of a pickup selector switch that allows 17 tonal options, and bamboo fingerboards.
• Tom Bedell purchases Breedlove Guitars
• Taylor releases the GS Mini – a travel guitar slightly bigger than their Baby model. It has become the most popular guitar design Taylor has released

2011

• Looking towards the future, Bob Taylor begins looking for a successor to take Taylor Guitars into the future. He hired luthier Andy Powers to head up guitar design at Taylor. Powers developed new body shapes, as well as began redesigning the majority of Taylor’s line of guitars
• Taylor and Spanish wood-supply company, Madinter, purchase an ebony lumber mill in Cameroon in order to help protect the over-harvesting of ebony and the wood from becoming endangered
• Taylor sets up a European branch in Amsterdam for guitar distribution, warehousing, and service. This resulted in significant growth in overseas sales
• The D’Angelico brand is revived and a new company is established in New York City – D’Angelico Guitars of America
• Tyler Guitars relocates to a much larger shop in the San Fernando Valley in California.

2012

• Fender discontinues Hamer Guitars

2013

• PRS launches their S2 line, which were still made in their Maryland factory, but went through a streamlined production process to reduce costs. These middle of the line guitars (with the Korean-made SE line being the bottom, and their USA Core line being the top) met the needs of a large segment of the guitar market – those looking for a high-quality US made guitar, without a huge price tag
• The Supro brand is revived and new Supro guitars are manufactured
• Larrivee closes up shop in Vancouver, moving all guitar production to their factory in Oxnard, California

2014

• Martin begins using their vintage tone system (torrefied) tops on their Authentic models to replicate the sound of a vintage guitar
• Larry Breedlove retires from Taylor guitars
• Collings releases another guitar brand called Waterloo. These guitars were based on inexpensive depression-era guitars, often with ladder bracing and basic finishes.
• Dennis Fano parts with Premier Builders Guild, leaving behind his brand name in the deal
• Fender sells Guild to the Cordoba Music Group. Cordoba subsequently set up a factory to manufacture Guild guitars in Oxnard, California

2015

• Taylor’s Tecate, Mexico factory moves into a larger 116,000 square foot building
• The Carvin Corporation split off its guitar making operations to a new company called Kiesel Guitars. Kiesel produces its own brand of instruments in addition to Carvin branded instruments
• Reverend Guitars moves from Detroit, Michigan to Toledo, Ohio.
• Dennis Fano launches a new brand of guitars called Novo. Novo guitars feature tempered pine bodies with distressed finishes
• Yamaha introduces the Revstar electric guitar, which was their first new electric gutiar series in over a decade. The design of the guitar incorporated elements of their motorcycle line. It featured chambered bodies that were designed with acoustics and resonance in mind as well as unique electronics with 5-way switching and a proprietary “focus” switch that simulates overwound pickups

2016

• Parker Guitars goes out of business
• Dennis Fano partners with Eastwood Guitars to build an affordable alternative to Novo Guitars – they called the brand Rivolta. The guitars are inspired by Rickenbacker body shapes with a variety of pickup and hardware options, and are built in the MIRR Factory in South Korea.
• Premier Builders Guild goes defunct and the Fano brand is sold to Desert Son Musical Instruments located in Tempe, Arizona
• James Tyler Guitars Japan is introduced as the brand’s mid-priced line of guitars

2017

• KMC Music reintroduces Hamer Guitars with a line of 5-import models
• Dennis Fano moves Novo Guitars from Fleetwood, Pennsylvania to Nashville, Tennessee

2018

• Taylor unveils its Builder’s Edition guitars. These were limited runs of instruments primarily focused on refining playing comfort and the overall playing experience
• Gibson Brands, Inc files for bankruptcy on May 1st
• Gibson restructures and hires a new President and CEO, James (J.C.) Curleigh on November 1st
• Gibson closes its Memphis factory and moves all electric guitar production to Nashville, TN
• PRS guitar releases the Silver Sky electric guitar – a partnership with artist John Mayer to refine and modernize the Fender Stratocaster. The guitar closely resembled a Stratocaster, but with small design and ergonomic tweaks in addition to a more traditional PRS headstock. It became a huge seller and outsold the Fender Stratocaster for several years
• BandLab Technologies relaunches the Harmony guitar brand with a new series of electric guitars and amplifiers

2019

• Gibson sues Armadillo Enterprises (owners of Dean and Luna Guitars) for trademark infringement of several of their body shapes and headstock designs – especially the Flying V shape. Gibson lost the law suit
• Gibson launches the Murphy Lab, a division of its custom shop, to painstakingly recreate vintage guitars
• Andy Powers is promoted as a partner in Taylor Guitars
• Boutique US acoustic guitar manufacturer Bourgeois Guitars partners with Chinese acoustic guitar maker Eastman Guitars. In the arrangement, Eastman handled Bourgeois’ overseas markets, and the two builders collaborated on a more affordable line of Bourgeois instruments
• Fender acquires the Bigsby brand from Gretsch

2020

• D’Angelico Guitars of America purchases the Supro USA brand
• D’Angelico opens a USA custom shop run by luthier Gene Baker
• Gibson revamps the Kramer brand and begins producing a new line-up of Kramer guitars
• COVID-19 Pandemic begins in March
• The COVID-19 pandemic caused many guitar manufacturers to halt production for months, creating a large back-log of guitars. Because many people were forced to stay at home, there was also a resurgence in interest in guitar playing – prompting record level guitar sales. Global guitar sales increase 15% from $8 billion in 2019 to $9.2 billion in 2020
• In response to the challenges of sourcing materials in the COVID-19 pandemic and a high-demand for affordable acoustic guitars, Taylor released their American Dream line of guitars. They featured simple appointments, thin finishes, and utilized solid woods that they had on hand but were not suitable for their existing models.
• Fender has its largest sales volume in the company’s history
• Fender begins phasing out its use of ash for guitar bodies due to declining supply in North America

2021

• Gibson acquires amp manufacturer Mesa Boogie
• With the increased demand for guitars due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gibson doubles the size of its Bozeman, Montana acoustic guitar factory
• Gibson’s Murphy Lab begins releasing authentically-aged electric guitars
• Taylor sets a record sales year, exceeding their previous record in 2019 by 40,000 guitars

2022

• Gibson discovers a design sketch for an electric guitar created by Ted McCarty and dated 3/18/1957 in their archives. After this discovery, Gibson created the design and manufactured a run of 318 custom shop guitars called “The Theodore”
• Andy Powers is promoted to President and CEO of Taylor Guitars

2023

• Gibson’s Murphy Lab begins authentically aging acoustic guitars, in addition to their electric guitar line
• Yamaha Guitar Group acquires Cordoba Music Group, owner of Guild Guitars

2024

• Taylor introduces its legacy collection, which brought back some of Bob Taylor’s most beloved guitar designs from the past. The guitars featured Taylor’s traditional X-bracing
  as well as some woods and design elements from their past history

2025

• The G&L Guitar Company goes out of business. Fender buys G&L’s intellectual property including the “Leo Fender” trademark

2026

• Taylor updates its flagship models, the 814ce, 414ce and 314ce, with three major updates – scalloped V-class bracing, its action control neck, and a brand new under saddle pickup system called the Claria