Matsumoku Industrial was a Japanese manufacturing company based in Matsumoto, Nagano, between 1951 and 1987. Established in 1951 as a woodworking and cabinetry firm, Matsumoku is remembered as a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars, including some Epiphone and Aria guitars.
History
In 1951, Matsumoku was founded as Matsumoto Mokkō ("Matsumoto Woodworking Company") by Mr. Tsukada in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan. It was a family-owned woodworking business that specialized in building tansu cabinets and butsudan.
Shortly after the World War II (1939-1945), the Singer Corporation had established a Japanese subsidiary, Singer Sewing Machine Company Japan, and set up production facilities in Nagoya. Singer contracted Matsumoku Industrial to build its sewing machine cabinets, and in 1951 Matsumoku became a partially owned subsidiary of Singer Japan. Matsumoku also branched out into building cabinets for manufacturers of televisions and "hi-fi" amplifiers.
Production
In the early 1960s (or mid-1950s), Matsumoku began to look into other woodworking markets when several subcontracts of Singer Corporation were moved to the Philippines and, as it had on its staff several skilled luthiers, ventured into guitar and violin production in 1963. Modest classical guitars, small steel-stringed acoustic guitars, mandolins and violins were built and marketed in the mid-1960s. However, as other Japanese companies were producing similar instruments, Matsumoku set out to distinguish itself by producing high-quality acoustic and electric archtop guitars. Several of Matsumoku's early archtop guitars survive, most owing their basic designs to Hofner, Framus, and Gibson. By the early 1960s, Matsumoku had acquired new mills, lathes and specialized presses and began to increase musical-instrument production. This new equipment, operated by its staff of skilled craftsmen, enabled Matsumoku to realize the mass production of high-quality guitars.
By the early 1970s, Matsumoku had begun using CNC (computer numerical controlled) mills, routers, and lathes, one of the first guitar makers to do so. This created a significant economy of scale, allowing the company to rely upon factory automation rather than skilled labor for rough shaping of components and basic assembly tasks. Even so, 60% of the construction process was still done by hand, including planing, fretting, joining, and assembly. This machine-cut yet hand-worked process offered improved profit margins at lower unit prices and yielded high quality instruments with unique character.
Matsumoku produced guitars, or parts of guitars, for Vox, Guyatone, FujiGen Gakki, Kanda Shokai (Greco), Hoshino Gakki (Ibanez), Nippon Gakki (Yamaha), Carlo Robelli (Sam Ash), Hondo professional series (USA guitar company), Aria and Norlin (parent company of Gibson). American owned Unicord contracted Matsumoku to build most of its Univox and Westbury guitars. St. Louis Music imported Matsumoku-built Electra Guitars. J. C. Penney sold Matsumoku-built Skylark guitars through its catalog division. Matsumoku built many early Greco guitars as well as Memphis, Vantage, Westbury, Westminster, C.G.Winner, Cutler, Lyle and Fell. Washburn Guitars contracted with Matsumoku to build some of its electric guitars and basses from 1979 through 1984. Though the names above reflect Matsumoku's involvement, many of the names were later sold to other companies, which made guitars that were completely different in quality and sound.
Although its name began appearing on neck-bolt plates, headstocks, and sound-hole labels in the 1970s, Matsumoku's role in the making of guitars under contract was largely unknown outside of Japan's guitar-making circles. Matsumoku's contract with St. Louis Music, which had marketed Matsumoku-made guitars under the Electra name, was taken over by Unicord, which owned the Westone name, and the guitars Matsumoku built during the resulting transitional phase bear the dual name Electra-Westone. Matsumoku's final phase as a maker of guitars under contract was making the Westbury, Westminster and Westone brands owned by American importer/marketer Unicord (which named those brands after the location of its headquarters in Westbury, New York). In 1979, however, when its contract with Matsumoku came to an end, Unicord chose not to renew it but rather to cut costs by moving production to Korea. Thus, once again, Matsumoku found itself in need of work. This time, though, rather than seeking a new distributor, Matsumoku began to self-market its guitars under its own brand name: Vantage.