Jaakko Noso (1913 - 2013) was a Finnish instrument maker. Noso made his first violin while in the army in 1933 and following the second world war began to sell his violins and guitars in local music shops. He opened his own factory in Järvenpää in 1945 where it ran until 1965. The factory was situated at Setulantie 13 - opposite the current music school (Keskisen Uudenmaan Musiikkiopisto), but was replaced by a block of apartments in 1973. At the peak of production in the late 1950s there were 12 people working there and it produced around 10,000 instruments in total - making Noso second only to Landola as a Finnish guitar maker. With success came large tax bills which led to the eventual closure of the Noso factory in 1965. Jaakko Nosos left Finland and moved to Vancouver, Canada. Noso made some instruments in Canada but it was difficult to compete with cheap Japanese instruments in the late 1960s. Noso worked in a door factory until his retirement but carried on making instruments in his spare time, however, his last was a cello made in 2003.

The guitars made by Noso in Finland were mainly acoustic (including Sointu, Dolce, Queen, Soloist, Royal models), but Noso also made some of the earliest Finnish electric guitars. The guitars were made of local woods: Finnish maple, birch and spruce and the hardware was also made in Finland.

Source: Wikipedia Finland - Jaakko Noso (12 September 2018)