Takamine History

Takamine Co., Ltd. pronounced Tak-a-meenie, is a Japanese guitar manufacturer based in Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan. Takamine is known for its steel-string guitars.

The company was founded in May 1962; in 1978 they were one of the first companies to introduce acoustic-electric models, where they pioneered the design of the preamp-equalizer component.

Takamine's US-American distributor is Kaman.

A Takamine copy of a Martin guitar was the cause of a letter from Martin Guitars in the early 1980s because Takamine's acoustic guitars including the logo design were supposedly nearly identical to Martin Models. According to Chris F. Martin IV, CEO of CF Martin and Company in a speech given to the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum members on August 8th, 2005 no lawsuit was ever actually filed, and Takamine did change the appearance of their guitars{.

Every year since 1987 Takamine presents a Limited Edition Guitar model, which gets produced in very limited quantities up to a few hundred guitars for the world wide distribution. These guitars always come with the latest pickup/preamplifier combination available and artful inlays, often with motifs focusing on nature or astronomical phenomena. The first book about Takamine guitars will be available in November 2007. It is focusing on the Limited Guitar Series, but also covering historical and technical details of Takamine instruments.

Company information courtesy of their Wikipedia entry, which is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.