Epiphone is an American musical instrument brand that traces its roots to a musical instrument manufacturing business founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire and moved to New York City in 1908. After taking over his father's business, Epaminondas Stathopoulos named the company "Epiphone" as a combination of his own nickname "Epi" and the suffix "-phone" in 1928, the same year it began making guitars.
V. C. Squier Company was a manufacturer of strings for violins, banjos, and guitars. It was established in 1890 by Victor Carroll Squier in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1965, the company was acquired by Fender. By 1975, Squier became defunct as a manufacturer and a brand name for strings, as Fender opted to market its strings under the Fender brand name.
ESP Company, Limited is a Japanese guitar manufacturer, primarily focused on the production of electric guitars and basses. They are based in both Tokyo and Los Angeles, with distinct product lines for each market. ESP Company manufactures instruments under several names, including "ESP Standard", "ESP Custom Shop", "LTD Guitars and Basses", "Navigator", "Edwards Guitars and Basses", and "Grassroots". Their products range from Japanese-built custom-shop-instruments to lower end mass-production Korean-, Indonesian-, and Chinese-made instruments.
Jackson is a manufacturer of electric guitars and electric bass guitars that bears the name of its founder, Grover Jackson. The company was acquired by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation in 2002, which manufactures Jackson-branded guitars in its Corona, California, US and Ensenada, Mexico facilities. Low-priced "budget" models are produced by sub-contractors in Indonesia and China.
HDC YoungChang is a South Korean manufacturer of pianos and industrial wood working machinery, headquartered in Incheon, South Korea. Young Chang currently holds 50% of the South Korean piano market. The company is among the largest and most automated of the world's piano manufacturers.
Univox was a musical instrument brand of Unicord Corporation from the early 1960s, when they purchased the Amplifier Corporation of America of Westbury, New York and began to market a line of guitar amplifiers. Univox also distributed guitars by Matsumoku, effects units by Shin-Ei Companion, and synthesizers by Crumar and Korg.
Washburn Guitars is an American manufacturer and importer of guitars, mandolins, and other string instruments. The original company was established in 1883 in Chicago, Illinois. The modern Washburn is a division of US Music Corp., in turn now owned by JAM Industries USA.
Silvertone is a brand created and promoted by Sears for its line of consumer electronics and musical instruments from 1916 to 1972. The rights to the Silvertone brand were purchased by South Korean corporation Samick Music in 2001. Samick made new musical instruments under the Silvertone brand and relaunched some historic models. In 2020, RBI Music was appointed the exclusive worldwide distributor of the Silvertone brand.
Buffet Crampon SAS is a French manufacturer of wind instruments based in Mantes-la-Ville, Yvelines department. The company is the world market leader in the production of clarinets of the Boehm system. Its subsidiary, Buffet Crampon Deutschland GmbH, founded in 2010 and based in Markneukirchen, Vogtland, Sachsen, is the world market leader in the manufacture of brass instruments. To manufacture and sell its products, the BC Group employed around 1000 people worldwide at the beginning of 2021, 470 of them as employees of BC Germany alone. The management of the group has been in the hands of Jérôme Perrod since 2014.
Samick Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. is a South Korean musical instrument manufacturer. Founded 1958, it is one of the world's largest musical instrument manufacturers and an owner of shares in several musical instrument manufacturing companies.
Charvel is a brand of electric guitars founded in the 1970s by Wayne Charvel in Azusa, California and originally headquartered in Glendora, California. Today, Charvel is owned by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
Orville by Gibson (オービルbyギブソン), also known simply as Orville (オービル), was a brand of guitars that was managed by the Gibson Guitar Corporation for the Japanese market during the late 1980s and most of the 1990s. The name is borrowed from Orville Gibson, who founded Gibson in 1902.
Cort Guitars is a South Korean guitar manufacturing company located in Seoul. The company is one of the largest guitar makers in the world, and produces instruments for many other companies. It also has factories in Indonesia and China.
Kay Musical Instrument Company was a US musical instrument manufacturer of the United States, in operation from 1890. Kay was established in 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, by Henry "Kay" Kuhrmeyer, from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet.
Matsumoku Industrial was a Japanese manufacturing company based in Matsumoto, Nagano, between 1951 and 1987. Established in 1951 as a woodworking and cabinetry firm, Matsumoku is remembered as a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars, including some Epiphone and Aria guitars.
Greco is a Japanese guitar brand owned by the Kanda Shokai Corporation (in Japanese) 神田商会, a musical instrument wholesaler mostly known for being part of Fender Japan. Instruments manufactured with the name "Greco" are electric and acoustic guitars.
Aria Guitars Co. is a Japanese manufacturer of musical instruments. The company, sited in the city of Nagoya, produces electric, acoustic and classical guitars, electric basses and ukuleles through its brands Laule'A, Mojo Gig Bags, Fiesta, José Antonio, Pignose and Kelii.
Westone is a brand of musical instruments that have been used by manufacturing companies of electric and acoustic guitars and basses. The name "Westone" gained notoriety when used by Matsumoku in Japan and St. Louis Music in Korea until the brand was ceased in 1991. Since then, the Westone name has appeared in some instruments by luthiers or manufacturing companies of Europe and Asia.
Lotus was a house brand of certain guitars made in various Asian factories from the late 1970s until the late 1990s. Lotus guitars were usually copies of better-known, up-market brand-name guitars, such as the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Stratocaster. The quality of the instruments was very good for the price.
Memphis Guitars were guitars produced during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.
