banjos

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Banjo

Rich & Taylor

The Rich and Taylor brand was launched in 1993 by Greg Rich and Mark Taylor.  Mark Taylor is the son of Tut Taylor, and had been making high-end acoustic and resonator guitars with Crafters of Tennessee since 1976. The Rich and Taylor brand lasted until around 1996 when Taylor resumed production until 2012 under the Crafters of Tennessee brand name.

Source: Crafters of Tennesse website (Archived 2001)

Rhyne

Jay "Rhyne" Riness (born in 1937) was a luthier who made and restored high-end acoustic guitars (and some electrics) in Decatur, Georgia. Jay also built mandolins, dulcimers, and banjos, but his passion was acoustic guitars. He normally worked alone but during the 1970s lead a team of 8 workers for a while. He stopped making guitars following a stroke in 2000 and he died in 2010.

Source: Jay Riness forum thread (14 August 2019)

Source: Jay Dickerson Riness Obituary. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. July 25, 2010

Wildwood

Wildwood Banjos is a small manufacturer of high-end banjos located in Bend, Oregon that started in Arcata, California. The company was founded by Mark Platin in 1972. Their product line includes several models of both resonator and open-back banjos in styles for the traditional frailing and clawhammer style players, and classic powerful bluegrass banjos for 3 finger pickers.

Wildwood mandolins and dulcimers are distributed in Japan by Hosco and in Ireland by Muzikkon - this brand appears unrelated to Wildwood Banjos.

Wildwood acoustic guitars and mandolins are also made by Nick Carpenter in Mount Franklin, Victoria, Australia.

Source: Wildwood Banjo Company website (archived 2005)

Source: Wildwood Instruments (Australia) website (28 June 2019)

Blanton

Blanton is a brand for banjos, Wiessenborn guitars and mandolins aimed at American Fok, Old Time, Irish trad and bluegrass musicians. Blanton instruments are distributed in Japan by Hosco and some are also made in Japan.

Blanton is also a brand name for US made pedal steel guitars.
 

Reliance

Reliance was a brand name of George Houghton and Sons (GH&S) of Birmingham, UK. George Hougton opened his Reliance factory in 1888 in Heaton Street, Birmingham. GH&S made a range of stringed instruments including banjos, ukueles and guitars. George Hougton's son (also named George) closed the Reliance works in 1962 and the equipment and some of the staff moved to a factory at 12 Gravel Hill, Bexleyheath, Kent where they made instruments under the Dallas label

RedLine

Redline Acoustics builds custom resophonic guitars, mandolins, guitars, and electric mini banjos in Hendersonville just outside Nashville, Tennessee. They have been making parts for Luthiers since 1998 and carry a line of stock parts for Mandolins, Banjos, Dobros, and Guitars. They also specialize in custom work.

Source: RedLine Acoustics website (5 June 2019)

Phantom Guitars

Phantom Guitars and basses was a brand name owned by Island Musical Supplies (Staten Island, New York) in the 1980s. Phantom instruments were made in Korea and included a complete range of electric, acoustic and bass guitars as well as mandolins and banjos.

Source: Phantom Guitars catalogs (1985 - 1987)

Penncrest

Penncrest was a brand name of the J.C. Penny department store chain. Many Penncrest instruments were made by Kay and from the mid 1960s they were increasingly sourced from Japan.

 

Penn (Pennino)

Penn was a ukulele and guitar brand name of the Pennino Music Company. Pennino Music was founded in Los Angeles, California by Jeanette Pennino Banoczi (1922 - 2017) and her first husband Humbert Pennino (1907 - 1955). Jeanette was born Jeannette Bernadette Boulay in Lowell Massachusetts and showed a talent for trumpet playing. In 1940, at the age of 18, Jeanette moved to New York City where she played First Trumpet for the Phil Spitalny All Girl Hour of Charm radio programme until 1945. She decided to relocate to California following a trip to Hollywood to play in the movie "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". She married Humbert Pennino, first trumpet for Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony Orchestra and they founded and ran Pennino Music Company, the largest wholesaler of musical instruments on the West Coast. During this period Pennino Music Company used the Penn brand for ukes and guitars.

Paramount

The Paramount banjo brand was established in 1921 by William L. Lange. By the 1930s banjos were declining in popularity compared to guitars and Paramount comissioned Martin to make some Paramount tenor guitars. These Paramount guitars had an unsual resonator with sound holes around the body but only around 30 were made.

The Paramount 1924 catalog gives an overview of the brand at the time:

Twenty-six years of banjo manufacturing sums up the experience which is embodied in the success of the Paramount Banjo. For one who has never visited the home of the Paramount Banjo it is difficult indeed to grasp the magnitude of this wonderful factory, from whose doors over 450,000 banjos have issued since the establishment of the business. Several thousand Paramounts alone were made in the first eighteen months of their introduction in 1921, proving superiority.

Otwin

Otwin was established in 1886 in Shilbach, Germany by Franz Otto Windisch (born in 1866). Franz Otto Windisch had previously apprenticed as a violin maker and worked in Markneukirchen for Gläsel & Herwig. In 1903 Windisch opened another Otwin factory in Schöneck. This branch quickly became the main factory, with up to 120 employees making stringed and plucked instruments. Franz Otto died in 1935 but his son Johannes took over the company, and his cousin Friedrich Paul Windish joined him as a partner in 1937. Otwin also used other brand names including: OW, Owi and Owophone. The company carried on until 1973 when it was taken over by  VEB Musima. In 1984 the Schöneck Otwin factory was closed, and Musima itself filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

Source: Schlag Gitarren - Otwin (31 October 2018).

SammO (SammoS)

SammO and SammoS were brand names of the Samuel C. Osborn Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois. Samuel Osborn opened a music tuition and instrument distribution company around 1900. By 1906 he had shops in Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as music teaching conservatories around the country. His music schools needed a lot of instruments and in 1916 he started his own manufacturing company in Chicago. The company made acoustic guitars, mandolins and banjo-ukes often using koa. In 1919 he opened an ambitious new factory using production line techiques to make pianos - this led to cash flow problems for Osborn who was forced to restructure his company. In 1922 Osborn died of complications following an appendectomy operation, aged just 47, and his company finally ceased trading.

Source: Samuel Osborn catalog 1920

Ortega

Ortega was established in 1994 by the German musical instrument distributor Roland Meinl (Meinl Cymbals & Percussion). At the beginning Ortega Guitars was a classical guitar company with a range of 6 classical guitar models all made in Spain using traditional methods. By 2018 their product line had expanded considerably and included acoustic & classical guitars, acoustic basses, mandolins, ukuleles and banjos as well as accessories and effects for acoustic instruments. By this time most Ortega instruments were made in China although there was still some Spanish manufacture.

Source: Ortega Guitars website (25 October 2018)

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