Levin (guitar company)

Infobox Company
company_name= Levin Guitars
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foundation=1900
founder= Herman Carlson Levin
location= Gothenburg
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key_people= Herman Carlson Levin
area_served=Global
industry=Musical instruments
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homepage= [http://www.levinguitars.com/ LevinGuitars.com]
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Levin is a Swedish manufacturer of musical instruments founded by Herman Carlson Levin, that was active beetween 1900 and 1978. The company produced over half a million instruments in the 80 years that it was active, mostly guitars but also mandolines, banjos and lutes, which made Levin into the biggest instrument manufacturer in Scandinavia for many years.

The founding of Levin Instruments

Herman Carlson Levin was born and raised in Åsaka Sweden, at age 18 he atended carpentery school and later got an apprenticeship at a furniture maker in Gothenburg. In august 1887 Levin moved to America and worked briefly as a carpenter before getting a job in 1888 at guitar manufacturer. Three years later he and two partners started a small production of instruments in New York. After a visit back in Sweden 1895 Levin realized the demand for instruments back home were high and that manufacturing of instruments back in Sweden could be profitable. So with 4000 kroners Levin opened up "Herman Carlssons Instrumentfabrik" at Norra Larmgatan in Gothenburg.

With a workshop of 70 m² and a crew of two, Levin started manufacturing guitars and mandolins. By the end of 1901 473 instruments were made and in 1903 with a crew of five Levins 1000th instrument were made.The factory was one of the best in Europe and between 1904 and 1912 Levin received many awards including the gold medal in Madrid for best guitar as well as the exhibition's Grand Prix price. In the mid 20's the plant had made over 5.0000 instruments and in 1925 production of a line of banjos were launched. By 1936 the 100.000 instrument had left the plant and Levin was marketing a successful line of archtop guitars. Shortly before 1940 Levin employed a crew of 45 in facility of a 1000 m². In the 1950s Levin launched a line of inexpensive guitars intended for schools and novice guitarplayers, theese guitars were of less quality then the rest of the Levin line up.

Launching Goya guitars

In 1952 Jerome Hershman a guitar distributor from America noticed a Levin guitar at a trade show in Germany and convinced the Levin company to let him market their guitars in America. However Hershman knew that the brandname Levin would be hard to market in America and suggested the name Goya. Inspired by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, who was well known for the guitars that he showed in his paintings. The Goya line up proved to be successful due to its high quality finsih. The use of nylon strings also gave the guitar a different tone than most other guitars that used steel strings, making it popular among folk musicans. In the late 1950:s a line of steelstringed flattops were launched, with adjustable trussrods and bolted necks.

In the early 60:s a line of "folk-guitars" were launched with wide flat fretboards similar to those on nylon strung guitars, but fitted with steelstrings. These were developed partly in cooperation with american folk-singer Oscar Brandt. Two 12-stringed flattops were launched during the same period. In 1967 a contract was signed between the Levin company and Goya Music (former Hershman Music) for no less than 120.000 instruments over a period of 10 years. At this time the Goya export was approximately 70 % of the companys total production which was + 30.000 instruments, mostly guitars.

The contract was broken by Goya Music in 1968, following the aquisition of Goya Music by Avnet Inc, who already at that time owned Guild Guitars.The Goya distribution rights were sold in 1970 to amp manufacturer Kustom Electric of chanute Kansas. In 1972 Kustom went bancrupt and The distribution was taken over by another Chanute company, Dude Inc. It is unclear if Levin ever delivered any instruments to Dude, the sales made by Dude may have been the remaining stock from the Kustom bancrupcy, which were relabeled.

In 1976 Dude sold the Goya brand to CF Martin who already purchased the majority of the Levin Company a few years earlier. CF Martin started import of Japanese and Korean instruments under the Goya name and both the Goya and Levin brands reputation diminished. CF Martin stopped offering Goya instruments during the 1990:s and sold the brand name in 1999 to Goya Foods.

In 1973 when Martin bought Levin, and the Levin became the headquarter for Martin Guitars and their Japan import brand Sigma Guitars in europe, as well as actually producing a run of some 200 Martin D-18 acustic guitars, which were labeled "LD-18 - Made In Gothenburg, Sweden". In 1981 the last guitar was built in the Gothenburg facility and parts of the inventory and the brand were bought by Svensk Musik AB, who started producing Levin classical guitars in a factory owned by former guitarneck supplier Hans Persson. Hans's son Lennart is still producing guitars for "Svenska Levin AB" in his fathers workshop outside Mariestad Sweden.

Svenska Levin offers also steelstring flattops and a line of archtop jazzguitars based on old Levin models, made in Korea.

External links

* [http://www.levinguitars.com/ Offical wabsite]
* [http://vintageguitarpro.com/goya.shtml Goya guitar site]