Danelectro - History

History

Danelectro was founded by Nathan Daniel in 1947; throughout the late 1940s, the company produced amplifiers for Sears, Roebuck and Company and Montgomery Ward. In 1954, Danelectro started producing the Danelectro lines of solidbody electric guitars and amplifiers. The company was also contracted to make guitars and amplifiers that were branded not with the Danelectro name, but with the names of various store brands, such as Silvertone and Airline. Later hollow-bodied guitars (constructed out of Masonite and plywood to save costs and increase production speed), distinguished by Silvertone's maroon vinyl covering, Danelectro's light tweed covering, the concentric stacked tone/volume knobs used on the two-pickup models of both series, and the "lipstick-tube" pickups—invented by placing the entire mechanism into spare lipstick tubes—aimed to produce no-frills guitars of reasonably good tone at low cost. In 1956, Danelectro introduced the six-string Baritone guitar, which would be adopted by other companies such as Fender with the Fender VI. The baritone guitar never proved especially popular but found an enduring niche in Nashville as the instrument of choice for "Tic-tac" bass lines. In 1966, Danelectro was sold to MCA. A year later, the Coral line, known for its hollow-bodies and electric sitars, was introduced. In 1969, the Danelectro plant was closed, due to MCA's attempt to market Danelectros to small guitar shops rather than large department stores.

In the late 1990s, the Evets Corporation started selling primarily copies of old Silvertone and Danelectro guitars, as well as newly designed effects pedals and small amplifiers. After initially selling well, guitar sales slowed to the point where Danelectro stopped selling guitars after 2001, opting to concentrate on effects pedals. In 2006, the new owners of Evets decided on a new marketing model for the guitars, selling a limited number of guitars each year.