banjos

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Banjo

Kiso Suzuki

The Suzuki Violin Company was established in 1887 by Masakichi Suzuki and has been making guitars since the early 1900s. Following the second World War the company was restructured into two parts: the Suzuki Violin Company, which later became the Kiso Suzuki Violin Company (run by one of Masakichi's sons Kikuo) and the Suzuki Violin Manufacturing Company came to be called the Nagoya Suzuki Violin Company (run by another one of Masakichi's sons, Umeo).

In 1951 Kiso Suzuki started making guitars. Kiso Suzuki often made acoustic and classical guitars for other brands and distributors including: Iwama Trading; CSL Gypsy; Tomson; Kansas; Takeharu; Halifax. Kiso Suzuki finally stopped trading in 1987 and ESP bought their machines and wood supplies.

Iida

The Iida Company (sometimes misspelled Jida or Ida) began making guitars in 1958 in Nagoya, Japan. Iida made solid body, semi-acoustic and acoustic guitars as an OEM builder for other well-known brands including Ibanez, Yamaha and Caparison. Iida Gakki also owns the Peerless guitar factory in Korea which specialises in archtop guitars.

I have not seen Iida branded guitars yet - although there were Iida banjos in the 1970s distributed in the USA by C. Bruno (Kaman Corporation). According to the Iida banjo catalog, Teruo Iida (son of the founder of the Iida Company) became fascinated with banjos at an early age and personally set up the Iida banjo production facility.

Source: Iida banjo catalog (1976)

Source: Claescaster - Japanese brands

Intex

Intex is a budget house brand of Intercontinental Music Limited of Ottawa. Intex was launched in 1997 and is used for a range of electric and acoustic guitars, basses and other instruments.

INTEXcables is a separate company, which makes high quality instrument cables, and is located in Carlsbad, California.

Source: Intex website

Source: INTEXcable website

Hullah

John Hullah worked for Fylde before starting his own brand in the late 1970s. He produced many acoustic guitars, mandolins, banjos and other stringed instruments in the 1980s & 1990s before retiring in the mid 2000s.

Howe-Orme

Howe-Orme instruments were made by the Elias Howe Company of Boston, MA. The Howe company was founded by Elias Howe (1820 - 1895) but the Howe-Orme instruments appeared after the death of Elias, when his sons William & Edward Howe had taken over the company. The Orme part of the brand name belonged to George Orme of Ontario who (along with James Black) held a patent for a longitudinal belly ridge for guitars - this was used on the Howe-Orme instruments which were a range of acoustic guitars, mandolins, mandolas and banjos.

Source: James Black & George Orme patent

Source: Edward Howe patent

Source: Howe-Orme catalogue

Source: Rick Turner Howe -Orme article (11 May 2022)

Kasuga

Kasuga was one of the oldest Japanese guitar makers - established in 1935 in Nagoya by Kazuyuki Kasuga. By the 1960s the Kasuga factory was making acoustic and electric guitars as well as mandolins and banjos. Kasuga exported instruments under the Kasuga brand name in the 1960s and 1970s but usually the instruments they made were badged as other brands - like K Country for acoustic guitars. Kasuga made their own RK Herby and Heerby brand guitars and also OEM instruments for other companies. By the 1980s Kasuga was completely an OEM brand manufacturer making instruments for ESP, Burny, Headway, Saga and Yamaha. The movement of OEM guitar production to Taiwan in the 1990s led to a sharp downturn in business but Kasuga carried on for a while producing violins and bouzoukis. In 1996 production finally stopped at Kasuga's Nagoya factory.

Source: translation of Kasuga history

Source: Kasuga catalogs 1970s-1980s

Gryphon

Gryphon stringed instruments was founded in 1969 by Richard Johnston and Frank Ford in a garage in Palo Alto. Initially they repaired and made instruments. From 1969 to 1973 Gryphon built about 40 steel-string guitars, and some F-style mandolins, and banjo necks. After opening a retail store in 1973, the combination of retail and repair work brought and end to the guitar making. Gryphon went on to become the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading supplier of mandolins, banjos, and acoustic guitars.

Source: Gryphon stringed instruments website

John Grey (and Sons)

John Grey & Sons was brand name of the Barnett Samuel & Sons company of London. John Grey was not an actual person but a name used by Barnet Samuel & Sons for their musical instrument division. The John Grey & Sons brand was introduced in 1911 and there were John Grey banjos, guitars and drums. In 1928, the John Grey and Sons part of Barnet Samuel & Sons was bought by Rose, Morris & Company. John Grey branded banjos were available up to the 1960s as part the Rose Morris company.

Source: John Grey - the Mandolin pages

Musima

Musima was an East German instrument manufacturer located in Markneukirchen. This southern part of Saxony (the Vogtland), near the Czech border, has a long history as a centre of luthiery due in part to the nearby forests of spruce perfect for violins. The area was settled in the late 1600s by Protestant violin makers. Escaping persecution in their native Bavaria they established a violin makers' guild and by the mid to late 1800s Markneukirchen was the largest producer of violins.

Gremlin

Gremlin was a budget brand of Samuel Music / Midco International (Effingham, Illinois) offering electric, acoustic and bass guitars. Available from the 1980s until the early 2000s Gremlin instruments were often short-scale length.

Grimshaw

Emile Grimshaw and his son (also called Emile) established a company in 1933 in the United Kingdom to sell banjos. Emile Grimshaw had previously worked at the Clifford Essex company and was a reknowned banjo player and teacher - the initial focus of the Grimshaw company was to sell banjos made by Robert Blake of Finchley, London. By 1940 the Grimshaws had opened their own guitar making workshop and established a reputation as makers of high quality instruments. Initially the guitars were branded as Revelation, Hartford or Premiervox. Following the death of Emile Grimshaw senior in 1943 the guitars were branded as "Grimshaw". During the 1950s they made many archtop, acoustic and electric models - with the first Grimshaw solid body electric introduced in 1959 (the Meteor model). The Grimshaw electric guitars of the 1960s were inspired by Gibson and Fender designs, but the 1970s saw Grimshaw introduce more of its own original designs.

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