![]() In 1967, Valco bought the company and continued to produce Kay guitars, the only notable change being the name on the headstock, which now read Valco. Home to Harmony, Lyon & Healy, and Valco – itself responsible for National and Supro – Chicago was a competitive location for Kay Guitars to set up in. Around this time, Kuhrmeyer also poached three luthiers from another local rival, Lyon & Healy, to help further the design of his company’s guitars, particularly their archtops. This work, though, was sub-contracted to Valco, a competing independent company, in the 1950s. By 1938, more than 60 per cent of Kay’s finished instruments were being sold outside Chicago by these distributors.Īs if that wasn’t enough, Kay also made amplifiers. Kay-made guitars – as well as those built by local rivals Harmony – were marketed under many names, depending on the catalogue they were sold out of: Silvertone, sold by Sears Truetone, sold out of Western Auto Custom Kraft, the house brand for the St Louis Supply Company department store JCPenney’s Penncrest line Airline, originally marketed and sold by Montgomery Ward Old Kraftsman, the Spiegel catalogue brand and Rex parlor guitars, sold by Gretsch.įor the most part, these were standard blue-collar guitars. ![]()
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