Levin (guitar Company) - Launching Goya Guitars

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 finish. 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 musicians. In the late 1950s, a line of steel-stringed flat-tops were launched, with adjustable trussrods and bolted necks.

In the early 1960s, 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 companies total production which was + 30,000 instruments, mostly guitars.

The contract was broken by Goya Music in 1968, following the acquisition of Goya Music by Avnet Inc, who already at that time owned Guild Guitars. The Goya distribution rights were sold in 1970 to amplifier manufacturer Kustom Electric of Chanute Kansas. In 1972 Kustom went bankrupt 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 bankruptcy, which were relabelled.

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 1990s and sold the brand name in 1999 to Goya Foods.

In 1973 when Martin bought Levin, it became the headquarters 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 acoustic guitars, which were labelled "LD-18 - Made In Gothenburg, Sweden". In fact, some LD 28 Martins, stamped "Made In Gothenburg" have surfaced. 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 guitar neck 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 steel string flattops and a line of archtop jazz guitars based on old Levin models, made in Korea.