Edit: It looks like Martin may have sold the Shenadoah brand and possibly the Sigma brand sometime in the early 1990s to Kurosawa who then contracted with Terada to build high spec torch in lay Martin clones labeled as Shenandoah and Sigma?
Just wanted to start a thread to document some of the more interesting Sigma guitars out there.
Would welcome comments on who made what. It is all more than a little mysterious as Martin has historically been very secretive about overseas contracts.
I've read plenty of stuff out there about Sigmas that I know is wrong. Like all Sigmas have laminated bodies. Or all Sigmas were made by Tokai.
I’m hoping to instead see what other members have been able to learn over the years through their experience.
For example, I was told by a Sigma collector a while back that the paper label Sigmas with gold metallic print on the label, where it says “CF Martin & Co”, were made by Terada....
No one else has said that to me, and now I can't find his contact information, but every one of these guitars I have seen have been high end and very well built.
I can’t find any information about these guitars on line and nothing about Terada making Sigmas so hopefully someone reading this may know something about it.
Also, the ones with these labels seem to primarily be in Japan. Maybe they were never made for export?? They would have been stiff competition for Martin guitars, laminate or not.
Again, if anyone knows anything please share.
Timeline:
1970 Brand established in Japan
1972 Martin Japan formed and run by Tokai
198x Production moves to Korea
xxxx Production moves to Indonesia
2007 Production ends in Indonesia
20xx Production resumes in China
Just wanted to start a thread to document some of the more interesting Sigma guitars out there.
Would welcome comments on who made what. It is all more than a little mysterious as Martin has historically been very secretive about overseas contracts.
I've read plenty of stuff out there about Sigmas that I know is wrong. Like all Sigmas have laminated bodies. Or all Sigmas were made by Tokai.
I’m hoping to instead see what other members have been able to learn over the years through their experience.
For example, I was told by a Sigma collector a while back that the paper label Sigmas with gold metallic print on the label, where it says “CF Martin & Co”, were made by Terada....
No one else has said that to me, and now I can't find his contact information, but every one of these guitars I have seen have been high end and very well built.
I can’t find any information about these guitars on line and nothing about Terada making Sigmas so hopefully someone reading this may know something about it.
Also, the ones with these labels seem to primarily be in Japan. Maybe they were never made for export?? They would have been stiff competition for Martin guitars, laminate or not.
Again, if anyone knows anything please share.
Timeline:
1970 Brand established in Japan
1972 Martin Japan formed and run by Tokai
198x Production moves to Korea
xxxx Production moves to Indonesia
2007 Production ends in Indonesia
20xx Production resumes in China
Last edited: