Penco was a brand of

guitars The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

owned and manufactured by the Hoshino Gakki Co. in its factory of

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most pop ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Ibanez is a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, as ...

guitars was another brand owned and manufactured by Hoshino Gakki. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, Penco guitars were distributed by the Philadelphia Music Company. Penco line of products consisted of electric and acoustic guitars, most of them were copies (also known as "lawsuit guitars") of renowned US guitar like Fender or Gibson, produced by Japanese companies in the 1970s.Lawsuit guitars
by Dick Laukenz on JazzGuitar website The term "lawsuit guitar" originated after a lawsuit filed by Norlin (Gibson's parent company) against Elger (owner of Ibanez) over trademark infringent in 1977.Penco A-15-JD
by Michael Wright on ''Vintage Guitar'' magazine, December 2009

History

The Penco brand was of relatively high quality. Their acoustics were usually but not always made with laminated back and sides and often laminated tops. Penco made

Martin Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austral ...

and

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 ...

style acoustic guitars. Reverse engineered and built to spec, Penco produced some of the closest replicas of the Martin D-28, D-35, D-41, D-45, and D-45 12 models in existence today. Penco also made bolt neck copies of

Les Paul Lester William Polsfuss (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009), known as Les Paul, was an American jazz, country, and blues guitarist, songwriter, luthier, and inventor. He was one of the pioneers of the solid-body electric guitar, and his prototype ...

and SG guitars and basses, Rickenbacker 4001 basses, Fender Stratocaster/ Fender Telecaster copies,

Fender Jazz Bass The Fender Jazz Bass (often shortened to ''J-Bass'') is the second model of Bass guitar, electric bass created by Leo Fender. It is distinct from the Fender Precision Bass, Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange a ...

copies; and the odd

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and

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 ...

. They also made 12-string acoustic guitars. The Penco brand was also put on "lawsuit" Korina-finished Gibson Explorer-styled guitars. These were identical to the Ibanez Destroyer and the

Greco Greco may refer to: People * Greco (surname), a list of people with this surname * a masculine variant of Greca (given name), an Italian feminine given name * Greco Mafia clan, one of the most influential Mafia clans in Sicily and Calabria Wine ...

Destroyer of the same period. The Ibanez line was distributed on the West coast of the U.S., while the Greco was exclusively for Japan, and Penco was distributed on the East coast of the U.S. There is bit of variance between the Penco acoustic models depending on what year the guitar was manufactured. A Penco A22M may or may not have an adjustable saddle via thumbscrews. Also some of the models have book matched backs while others maybe tri-backed. Most Penco acoustics had solid spruce tops and laminated backs and sides of maple or rosewood depending on the model. The A24 is a 12 string acoustic guitar, with a solid –but relatively thin– spruce top, rosewood sides and back and a mahogany neck with rosewood fingerboard. They had a zero fret and a screw adjustable bridge modeled after the Gibson Heritage Jumbo bridge of that period. They sold new for around $140 in the mid-1970s. The A10 was a solid top AA or AAA size Rosewood Laminated back and possibly their first acoustic model. The Penco A25 12-string acoustic guitar had a solid spruce top with solid rosewood back and sides. The back was a 4 piece book-matched back.

Models

Some of the models commercialised with the Penco brand were: * 5502N Strat, * A-8M * A-12 * A-13 * A-14-JD * A-14-M * A-15-JD * A-16 * A-170 * A-18 * A-19 * A-19-JD * A-20 12 * A-22-M * A-25 * A-230 * A-330 (Hummingbird copy) * A-340 (Dove copy) * A-6 * E-70 * ES Copy * Howard Roberts ES-175 copy * J-200 * Les Paul / Les Paul Custom copy * SG Copy * SG Bass copy * Strat copy * Rickenbacker 4001 copy * Telecaster copy * Jazz Bass copy

References

{{Guitar brands Guitar manufacturing companies Defunct companies of Japan

History

Models

See also

References