Samick Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...

: 삼익악기, also known as Samick) is a South Korean

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

manufacturer. Founded in 1958 as Samick Pianos, it is now one of the world's largest musical instrument manufacturers and an owner of

shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...

in several musical instrument manufacturing companies. Apart from its own brand, Samick manufactures musical instruments through its subsidiary brands such as Wm. Knabe & Co., Pramberger, Kohler & Campbell, and

Seiler Seiler is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jack Seiler (born 1963), American politician and Mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida * Alexander Seiler I (born 1819), Swiss Hotel Pioneer * Hermann Seiler (born 1876) Swiss Hotel Pione ...

(pianos), Greg Bennett, Silvertone, Stony River, and San Mateo (guitars).

Operations

In 1992, Samick built its P.T. Samick factory in Cileungsi, near

Bogor Bogor ( su, , nl, Buitenzorg) is a city in the West Java province, Indonesia. Located around south of the national capital of Jakarta, Bogor is the 6th largest city in the Jakarta metropolitan area and the 14th overall nationwide. Samick guitars are manufactured under different brand names and made by a number of different makers, including Greg Bennett and J.T. Riboloff (a former

luthier A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers o ...

Gibson Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * Gi ...

). Some other Samick-built guitars are sold under Squier, Epiphone,

Washburn Washburn (alternatively Wasseburne, Wasseborne, Wasshebourne, Wassheborne, Washbourne, Washburne, Washborne, Washborn, Wasborn, Washbon) is a toponymic surname, probably of Old English origin, with likely Anglo-Norman and Norman-French influen ...

, Hohner, Silvertone, and other brands.

Greg Bennett Guitars

American luthier Greg Bennett designed a line of guitars for Samick. The guitars have pickups designed by Seymour Duncan,

machine head A machine head (also referred to as a tuning machine, tuner, or gear head) is a geared apparatus for tuning stringed musical instruments by adjusting string tension. Machine heads are used on mandolins, guitars, double basses and others, and ar ...

s from Grover, and bridges by Wilkinson. Woods used include ovangkol and ebony from Africa, rosewood from India, and rock maple from North America. Instruments under the Greg Bennett label are electric, acoustic and archtop guitars, electric and acoustic basses,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

s and

autoharp An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term ''autoharp'' was once a trademark of ...

s. Bennett died on June 29, 2020 at the age of 69.

Piano manufacturing and brand management

Samick also has a wide range of pianos. Its acoustic piano brands include Samick, Pramberger, Wm. Knabe & Co., Kohler & Campbell, and Gebrüder Schulze; and it has digital piano brands of Kohler, Samick Digital, and Symphonia. Samick recently announced the discontinuation of the Sohmer & Co. brand. In 2004, Samick gained controlling interest in competitor Young Chang, but antitrust rulings in the U.S. and Korea ended the merger a year later. From 2003 to 2009 Samick was associated with German C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik. In addition, Bechstein and Samick have a joint venture factory in Shanghai, China. In October 2008, Samick announced its purchase of

, another German piano company, that is generally agreed to compete with Bechstein at both price point and overall quality. The announcement raises questions about the continued viability of relationship between Samick and Bechstei

In late 2009, Samick acquired a 16.5% share of

Steinway Musical Instruments Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc. is a worldwide musical instrument manufacturing and marketing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, based in Astoria, New York, the United States. It was formed in a 1995 merger between the Conn-Selmer#The H&A Se ...

. By November 2010, Samick's share in Steinway Musical Instruments increased to 32%. In 2013, John Paulson outbid Samick when Steinway and Sons was taken private.

Other businesses

In 1975, Samick Pianos, as the company was known at that time, created an

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

department and began building bows. In 1990, this division was spun off as Samick Sports Co., Ltd. In 2016, the company was restructured and its name changed to Samick Archery Co., Ltd. Since 1996, its products have been used to attain several

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

gold medals, mostly by Korean athletes. Besides Olympic-level archery equipment, Samick also manufactures the very popular budget-oriented Sage and Polaris hunting bows.

References

External links

Official website
{{Guitar brands Piano manufacturing companies Guitar manufacturing companies Musical instrument manufacturing companies of South Korea Manufacturing companies established in 1958 South Korean companies established in 1958