Tom Cussen established Clareen Banjos in 1976 and made the first Clareen banjo in 1979. Cussen was the tenor banjo player in Irish trad group Shaskeen in the 1970s and 1980s. Tom was joined in the business by his son Fintan who became head of production in 2018.

Source: Clareen Banjos website (4 April 2019)

Manouk Papazian was born in 1914 in Smyrna, Turkey into an Armenian family. His family soon left Turkey for Argentina, escaping the Armenian Genocide of 1914 - 1923. While in Buenos Aires Papazian became a self taught luthier in 1934 and worked there professionally from 1949 to 1956. In 1956 he moved to New York, where he made violins, violas, cellos, lutes, vihuelas and classical guitars. By 1981 he had made over 50 classical guitars, nearly 50 lutes and around 25 each of the other instruments. Manouk Papazian died in 1999.

Source: Amati Auctions website (1 April 2009)

Source: Directory of Contemporary American Musical Instrument Makers. Susan Caust Farrell. 1981

Aarón García Ruiz makes classical and flamenco guitars (and other instruments) in Churriana de la Vega, 6 kilometers from Granada. As well as working as a luthier Ruiz exhibits his collections of instruments, lectures, and provides conferences and didactic workshops about music and instruments - using his background as a musicologist specializing in organology.

Source: Aarón García Ruiz website (30 March 2019)

Sky guitars are designed by Uli Jon Roth and made in Germany by Roth's favorite luthier, Boris Dommenget. The business was founded in 2017 and offers ten series of Sky guitars - divided into three main families: Pegasus, Aquila and Unicorn. The Sky guitar design was first produced in the 1980s, when Roth commissioned construction of custom guitars with 30 frets from luthier Andreas Demetriou. Extra higher frets were added to emulate the high notes of a violin.

Can someone help me with this Bass guitar

Pascal Quinson has been a luthier since 1987. He started out in Toulouse, at quai de la Daurade. He was partly self taught but also learned from luthiers in Paris. Now works in Montauban where he makes violins, lutes and classical guitars.

Phoenix Mandolins was founded by Rolfe Gerhardt who started building mandolins in the early 1970s. He was self taught and started by using some plans from Benny Cain, and observations of a local Gibson Loar F-5 to make two reproductions of a 1920s Gibson F-5 mandolin. He then began experimenting with mandolin design and this was the start of Unicorn mandolins. Rolfe made 149 mandolins before selling Unicorn to Dave Sinko in 1980 who eventually moved Unicorn to Nashville. Although Rolfe had agreed not to make mandolins for ten years as part of the sale agreement of Unicorn, he didn't last that long and was building mandolins again in the late 1980s using the Phoenix brand name. His new design had a fixed graphite-epoxy neck stiffener which eliminated the need for an adjustable truss rod. He also refined the body shape using a two-pointed cut-away design, and incorporated a radiused fingerboard and finger-rest.