The Chinese (Guitar) Invasion Is Here

 

The Chinese Guitar Invasion

Beatles on Sullivan 1964

I am old enough to recall the British Invasion. Back in February of 1964 The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Those countless teens that were not fortunate enough to be at the show watched The Beatles perform on television that Sunday night. After that many of them decided to learn to play guitar. 

Mid 1960 Kawai
guitar

This resulted in a guitar boon that lasted for about three or four years. Musical instrument sales of guitars soared, and the majority of those instruments were made in Japan by various manufacturing companies, then shipped in bulk to the United States and Europe where brokers relabeled or ‘badged’ them. 

Most of these guitars, basses, organs, and drums were of inferior quality to the American made instruments. The Japanese manufacturers attempted to model the guitars off US made designs. They usually based them on pictures of American guitars since receiving an actual American made guitar was expensive, and had a tariff.

So we not only had The British Invasion of musicians anad bands but we experienced The Japanese Invasion of guitars as well. Though I might add some of these mid 1960’s instruments were also made in Italy, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. 

Norlin vs Elger 1976

In 1976 Gibson sued Ibanez in the lawsuit Nolin vs Elger Music. Briefly, the Hoshino company of Japan, purchased Elger Music/ Medley Music of Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania was owned by Harry Rosenbloom. Although his store was located in the same state as Martin Guitars, Rosenbloom could not get a Martin franchise. 

Rosenbloom hired two luthiers to build guitars under the Elger brand name. 

Medley Music Bryn Mawr

This went on for a year until Mr. Rosenbloom found it was far too expensive to employ luthiers, so Harry inked a deal with Hoshino to manufacture guitars for his store and label them as Elger guitars. At the time Hoshino/Ibanez had been making pretty good copies of Gibson guitars at the time. From 1969 to 1986, Gibson guitars were owned by The Norlin Corporation.

The Ibanez company bought Medley Music from Rosenbloom and began using it as their USA distribution center. This resulted in Gibson/Norlin suing Elger for patent infringement. This famous suit was settled out of court, but brought about the term "Lawsuit Guitars".  The suit never made it to trial and was settled out of court.

Orville by Gibson

Yet only seven years later, in 1983 Gibson/Norlin decided to hire a Japanese firm to build it's Epiphone line of guitars. These were produced by Tokai, Burny, and Greco. Then in 1988 Gibson hired a Japanese firm to build  models called "Orville" guitars.  In the proceeding years Epiphone as moved most of its production to China. 

Made In Japan 
Stratocaster

Then in 1982 Fender inked a deal with the the FujiGen Gakki factory in Japan to produce some of its guitars. This happened at a time when Fender/CBS was up for sale. Then in 1985 Fender was sold to a group of investors. After the sale Fender did not have an onshore manufacturing site as the Fullerton California site was not part of the deal. Around this date all Fender guitars were made in Japan. 

Fender Corona, California

Within a few years there were American made Fenders built in Corona California and the cheaper guitars, basses, amps were built in Eseneda Mexico as well. Later Fender moved it's Squier line are made in China and Indonesia. 

With the advent of all the well known USA guitar manufacturers using Chinese, Japanese, and Asian labor to build budget instruments it was bound to result in the same Chinese companies manufacturing their own line of guitars, basses, and amps and retailing those instruments at extremely low costs.

Yako Musical Instrument Co.

The Yako Musical Instrument Company is located in ZangZhou China and has a branch in Taiwan. Yako manufactures hundreds on brands including Squier.  In the past Fender built it's Modern Player series under the Fender brand name in China.

AXL Factory

AXL Musical Instruments also manufactures Squier instruments and is located in Shanghai, China. Squier Affinity guitars are manufactured in China as well as in Indonesia. 

Samick Co. Korea

Cort  Crafter, and Samick of Korea all have associations with Fender as well as other companies. All of this to say that because of Gibson and Fenders offshore production,  Because of the decisions of the major US guitar manufacturers which also include  Gretsch, and Guild, which is now owned by Cordoba Guitars, we are in the midst of a Chinese Invasion.

Amazon Electric Guitars

Amazon was quick to pick up on guitar and musical instrument sales and set up affiliations with these  same Chinese manufacturers that the USA manufacturers have contracted with for Squier and Epiphone such as the Yako Musical Instrument Company, to sell guitar and basses under Amazon brands.

Chinese Made Gretsch

Interestingly Yako and AXL both build  guitars for Gretsch and for  Cordoba, which owns Guild Guitar brand. This same company builds guitars under the Donner brand as well.

Temu Guitars

If you shop on Temu for guitars and basses, these instruments are built by Yako.  Fesley Guitars are made by the same Chinese company, Yako. Incidentally, Yako is the same company builds Fender's Squier guitars. 

Firefly
Guitar

Firefly Guitar are made in China, but by a smaller unidentified company. They are made in small batches. These guitars are of better quality than some of the other Chinese brands and tend to sell out quickly.

These guitars can be found on guitargarden.com.  

Glarry T-Style - $65.99

One of Amazon’s most popular brands are Glarry Guitars. They are made in Fuzhou City in China. Glarry Musical Instruments makes many other musical instruments mainly for export and rebranding. 

The popularity of Glarry Guitars arises from the very low price point, of sixty to one hundred-sixty dollars for their line up, and most bore resemblance to Fender Instruments.  

I purchased a Glarry T-Style guitar.  It took me a good while to set it up.  The strings that come on the guitar are awful. I was never a fan of Telecaster bridges so it took some work to get all the strings set to a comfortable height. The neck truss rod needed to be tightened up about a quarter turn to the right.. The neck could still use some sanding, since it is rougher than the typical satin finished neck. Also some of the fret ends need to be filed down.  After putting all the work into it the guitar is now comfortable to play, however the neck is a little clubby. If you are planning to buy one of these guitars for your kid, I advise that the set up is not a job for a beginner.

Michael Angelo Batio

Michael Angelo Batio is an extraordinary ambidextrous  heavy metal shredder that plays specially built guitars with two to four necks. He is a sponsor for the Chinese brand of guitars called Sawtooth. 

Sawtooth Guitars

The multi-neck instruments are made for him, but the single neck versions are available on Amazon. These are definitely better instruments than most Chinese brands and run from the $150 to $225 range. 

Smiger Wholesale Guitars

Sawtooth guitars are made and distributed by the wholesale manufacturer Guangzhou Vines Musical Instrument Company. 

They usually sell in lots of a minimum of four pieces direct from the manufacturer. Their house brand is called Smiger Electric Guitars.  

Hotone Nano Amp

One company I haven't mention is Hotone. They make small amplifiers and effects.  This one is a puzzler.  Is it pronounced "Hot One or Ho Tone?" let me know in the comments. 

Amazon sells guitars and musical instruments under many different brands, that are generally made at one of the aforementioned factories. Many of these instruments rival Epiphone and Squier guitars and basses.

With some tweaking any these guitars and basses can be updated to very nice instruments.  

As I look at the videos below I am reminded of the humble beginnings of Leo Fender's factory in Fullerton California. That facility, Leo Fender opened in 1946, was housed in a warehouse that had little or no ventilation, climate control, humidifiers, air purification, or air conditioning.  The current Fender factory in Corona California is much improved, for the guitars, and the employee, The videos below show some of these Chinese factories, but for the CNC machines and other updated equipment, being housed in the same conditions that Fender employees worked in back in the 1950's.

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