Samick Company History courtesy Rick Clapper Model Specifications courtesy Dee Hoyt. Samick continues to expand their line of guitar models through the use of innovative designs, partnerships with high exposure endorsees (like Blues Saraceno and Ray Benson), and new projects such as the Robert Johnson Commemorative and the D'Leco Charlie Christian Commemorative guitars. This merger stabilized Valley Arts as the custom shop wing of Samick, as well as supplying Samick with quality American designed guitars. In the past couple of years Samick acquired Valley Arts, a guitar company known for its one-of-a-kind instruments and custom guitars. With their size of production facilities (the company claims to be cranking out over a million guitars a year, according to a recent brochure), Samick could be referred to as modern day producer of House Brand guitars as well as their own brand. was established in 1986 as an affiliate producer of other products, and the company was listed on the Korean Stock Exchange in September of 1988. Throughout the 1980s Samick continued to grow, prosper, and win awards for quality products and company productivity. They opened a branch office in Los Angeles in 1978, a brand new guitar factory in 1979, and a branch office in West Germany one month before 1981. Samick continued to expand into guitar production. In 1973, the company incorporated as the Samick Musical Instruments Mfg. One year later in 1965, the company began manufacturing guitars, and by the early 1970s expanded to produce grand pianos and harmonicas as well. By January of 1960, they had started to produce upright pianos, and within four years became the first Korean piano exporter.
was established in Korea in 1958 by Hyo Ick Lee. However, Samick has been producing both upright and grand pianos, as well as stringed instruments for nearly fifty years. guitar market, a number of consumers thought that the company was brand new. When the Samick trademark was finally introduced to the U.S. since 1981.įor a number of years, the Samick corporation was the phantom builder of instruments for a number of other trademarks. Samick has been producing guitars since 1965 and has been importing guitars into the U.S. Distributed by Samick Music Corporation in Gallatin, TN (previously located in Southern California).