Saburo Nogami was an early apprentice of Masaru Kohno - he joined in 1959, finally leaving the workshop in early 1970s. Nogami is best known for his classical guitars but also made some other types of stringed instruments. In the mid 1970s he became involved with Zen-on, supervising production of affordable classical guitars which bore his name on the label - as well as either "Zen-on" or "Nisshin Kogyo Co., LTD". From the late 1970s until the late 1990s Nogami worked with Kazuo Yairi, where again he supervised production of classical guitars.