I am curious about the least known brands of guitars, and one brand I had not really explored were Levin Guitars. I had read they were built in Sweden, but that was the extent of my knowledge.
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| Herman Carlson Levin |
Herman Carlson Levin was born and raised in Asaka, Sweden. In the evenings he attended carpentry school in his home town with the intent of becoming a furniture maker. By 1887, he immigrated to the United States and the following year he got a job at a guitar factory, where he spent three years learning the trade.
Levin along two other employees left their jobs and started out on their own forming a small company to manufactured guitars, and other stringed instruments.
On a visit back to Sweden in 1895, Mr. Levin discovered that there was quite a demand for guitars,
mandolins, banjos,
and lutes. Levin had a small savings, and opened his own shop, in the town of Gothenburg, calling it "Herman Carlssons Instrumentfabrik". He hired two other woodworkers and began manufacturing guitars and mandolins.
By 1901 his logs show that 473 instruments were built and sold. Two years later, with an addition of three more employees, the company had more than doubled the number of instruments manufactured.
His company's name and reputation spread throughout Europe, and Mr. Levin received many awards including
a gold medal in Madrid for best guitar, and the Grand Prix award and an exhibition in Spain.
By the mid 1920’s his factory grew, and production topped 50,000 instruments. A line of banjos were added.
In 1936, the company had built it’s 100,000 instrument.
Levin had added a line of archtop guitars.Four years later, in 1940 Mr. Levin had a staff of 45 professional builders, and expanded his facility to 1000 square meters.
Ten years later,
Levin launched a line-up of inexpensive student grade instruments. Although these were of lower quality, they caught the eye of importer
Jerome Hershman, an American guitar distributor.
(Hershman will later surface as the sole importer of Swedish made Hagstrom Guitars. But that is another story.)
In 1952 Levin guitars were featured at a trade show in Germany, and Hershman convinced the company that he could market their brand in the United States. But, because the name was “Levin”, Mr. Hershman, who was Jewish, felt the "Levin" would be hard to market in the United States, due to its Jewish connotation. So he suggested that the guitars sold in the USA under the name Goya. It sounded Spanish, and the artist, Francisco Goya, was known for depicting guitars in his paintings.
The Goya guitars imported to the US had high quality finishes, and were usually classical, nylon strung instruments, and they became quite popular among the folk musicians of the day.
In the late 1950’s a line of
steel string flat top guitars were offered. These instruments had adjustable truss rods, and bolt-on necks.
Later in the 1960’s, Goya offered a line of “Folk”guitars based on the wider neck folk instruments, but fitted with steel strings. Two 12 string models were also offered under the Goya brand.
By 1967 Levin inked a deal with Goya Music, which was owned by Mr. Herschman, for a shipment of 120,000 instruments over a 10 year period. At that time Herschman/Goya was importing 70% of the companies production at this time.
However in 1968 the contract was broken when Herschman/Goya Music was acquired by Avnet Incorporated, which owned Guild Guitars. (Guild was sold to Avnet following the death of its founder Al Dronge.)
By 1970 Avent Incorporated sold Goya Music to Kustom Electric, the Chanute Kansas company that made Kustom Amplifiers. Two years later, Bud Ross, and Kustom Amplifiers filed for bankruptcy, and their assists were taken over by a Chanute company called Dude Incorporated.
It is assumed that Levin never delivered any stock to Dude, and this company probably sold off the remaining assets of Goya guitars. Perhaps some of the guitars were sold under a different label.
Around 1967 Martin was considering a line of imported guitars that would be less expensive than the company’s flagship brand.
They contacted Levin to build some prototypes of a Martin D-18 around 1967.Martin Guitar purchased Levin Guitars in 1973, with the intent of an imported line up. They had already launched Sigma Guitars as early as 1970 to import parts from Japan.
It was not until 1976 when Dude Inc sold their remaining stock of Goya instruments to C.F. Martin.
Martin was already importing Japanese and Korean made instruments under the Goya name, which had an adverse effect on a well known European manufacturer. This ended in 1990 when Martin quit selling Goya guitars.
As stated already, 1973 was also the year that Martin purchased the Levin facility to be used as their European headquarters.
Their intent was to have guitars built under the name Sigma. According to Goran Levin, the last surviving family member, there were approximately 200 Sigma guitars labeled “LD-18 Made in Gothenburg, Sweden” produced at this facility. This lasted until 1981.
At that time, the remaining instruments, parts, facility, and Levin brand were purchased by Svensk Musik AB, which started producing Levin classical guitars in a factory owned by former guitar neck supplier Hans Persson. Hans’ son Lennart is still producing guitars for "Svenska Levin AB" in his father's workshop outside Mariestad, Sweden.
During its best years Levin produced some very fine instruments, that were worthy competitors of most American made instruments.
During a trip to the United States, Django Reinhardt was photographed playing Fred Guys' 1938 Levin Deluxe Archtop guitar.
Fred Guy played guitar in Duke Ellington's band.Even its Goya line up were excellent classical instruments. If you look closely at the movie The Sound of Music, you will see Julie Andrews playing a Goya guitar.
Here are few very fine Levin guitars.
This is a later model. A beautiful 1962 Levin 315/M2.
And finally a gorgeous 1914 Levin Model 3, with an Alpine Spruce top. C.F. Martin became attracted to Levin, not just because this company was making excellent instruments, but because they used Alpine Spruce in the builds.
Click on the links under the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.©UniqueGuitar Publications (text only)
