Greco guitars
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| Private | |
| Industry | Musical instruments |
| Founded | 1960 |
| Headquarters | Japan |
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Area served
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Global |
| Products | Electric guitars |
| Owner | Kanda Shokai |
Greco (Japanese: グレコ Gureko) is a brand of electric guitars produced by Kanda Shokai (Japanese) 神田商会. Kanda Shokai (Shokai means trading company) is a musical instrument wholesaler mostly known for being part of Fender Japan.
Kanda Shokai was established in 1948 and the Greco brand name was started in 1960. It was not until 1966/1967 that Kanda Shokai began marketing Greco Telecaster-like models. Originally, Kanda Shokai used the 'Greco' brand name for the solid body models and used the 'Canda' brand name for its Acoustic models, basing this on the company name Kanda (Canda). In the mid/late 1960s, Kanda Shokai also exported some Greco-branded guitars based on Hagström and EKO designs for Avnet/Goya in the USA. These guitars were made by the FujiGen and Matsumoku (and possibly Teisco) guitar factories and were very similar to the late 1960s Ibanez guitars based on Hagström and EKO designs. Kanda Shokai also marketed a few original designs in the late 60s including the Greco Semi-hollow "Shrike" guitars which were imported and marketed first by Goya and later by Kustom. The "Shrike" model was unusual in that it had a pair of unusual "L" shaped pickups, with the corner of the "L" pointing towards the headstock on the neck pickup and towards the bridge on the bridge pickup These "boomerang" pickups predate the Gibson Flying V2 "Boomerang" shaped pickups by over 10 years.
In the early 1970s Kanda Shokai marketed Greco Gibson-like models, but with bolt-on necks rather than the set necks of genuine Gibson guitars. These were very similar to the Ibanez Gibson-like models available at that time and most of these models had a Greco logo that looked more like "Gneco". By the mid/late 1970s most Greco Gibson-like models were being made with set necks and open book Gibson designs. Some other Greco Gibson-like models from the 1970s had a different headstock design, more like a Guild headstock design, that had a Greco logo with equally sized letters.
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Wikipedia