Maybe someone can connect with that eager teenager that wailed away in a garage in the middle of nowhere. This is just to help people out, so maybe somebody can rediscover the guitar of their youth. Now before all you curmudgeons and codgers start blasting away at the information compiled here, I want you to stop and think about my mission for a moment. That fellow has done some really excellent work compiling all sorts of information regarding guitar brands from all over the world, both past and present.

I also want to mention the great site Jedistar. So I really appreiate these fellers! As of late, the great Bill Menting has been filling in some of the missing information, and again, I appreciate it! Thanks Bill!Īlso, a million thanks goes to the excellent work of Michael Wright, who was writing and researching these guitars when people were just as likely to throw them in the trash. One thing I learned from this project is that some dudes are holding on to their information for various odd reasons and really don’t want to give it up. These three guys are just so great for sharing what they know. Scott Freilich of Top Shelf Music filled in some missing pieces too. The great Jimmy Noise worked on this list and added a ton of information, and Nate DeMont of DeMont Guitars gave up just about everything he had for this project. Many thanks need to go out to the main contributors to this list besides yours truly. Of course it’s a seemingly impossible task, so I did/do need help. So, I figured I’d give it a shot! I’m going to try to list every damn brand name that was ever placed on the headstock of a 1960s Japanese guitar!! A lot of this information is already out there floating around like tiny puzzle pieces, and all I’m trying to do is collect it in one place.

At the end of his list he wrote that it was time to start tracking all the names down but in the almost 20 years that have followed, I haven’t seen anyone else try. What he did was compile a list of brand names and distributors/importers where known. Way back in the 1995 the early legend of guitar research, Michael Wright, published a short list like this in his book Guitar Stories Volume One. OK, I think it’s time for a list like this.

Stagg guitar serial number lookup