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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | I guess the rumors were true. Fender bought out Tacoma and is planning already to get the Guild line made in the USA again, alongside Tacoma.
This explains why Tacoma recently dropped 2/3s of this product line. Why they've been dumping inventory all over the place (good for buyers!). And why they've been absent from the once popular position "in those catalogs" (as mentioned in another thread).
I guess it could be worse. |
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Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Wasn't Tacoma owned or started by Samick? |
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May 2004
Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | Interesting. When I bought the Elite, the local mom and pop told me they'd get in a Tacoma Chief (which was what I initially thought I wanted) for me to try out. They never did. Oh well, I'm much better off with a real guitar. :) |
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July 2004
Posts: 338
Location: Omaha | While I'm certainly a capitalist at heart, if this is true, it is very sad. How many companies does Fender need to buy/control/consume?
However, if it meant Fender would stop trying to make acoustics with their own name on them, that would be a GOOD thing...
:p |
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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | CWK2.... you have more insight than most, but I've never seen that Tacoma was started by Samick. I always thought it was an offshoot of that piano company. |
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March 2004
Posts: 201
Location: Vernon, CT | Hope we don't ever end up seeing a Fender Adamas or Fender Custom Legend....or a Martinized Fender even though I love my California built Strat and P-Bass...Fender should fend off or there be a Fender Bender! Play On!
John L.
Custom Legend 1779-USA (almost here)
Legend LX
Balladeer LX
Std. Balladeer
Celebrity C026
Tornado (1970)
Takamine 12 String
Martin D16GT
Fender P-Bass
Fender Strat |
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April 2004
Posts: 234
Location: Phoenix, AZ | Originally posted by leftovertion:
While I'm certainly a capitalist at heart, if this is true, it is very sad. How many companies does Fender need to buy/control/consume?
However, if it meant Fender would stop trying to make acoustics with their own name on them, that would be a GOOD thing...
:p
As I've been told by an "acquaintance" at Fender, Tacoma was about to go under. If Fender hadn't bought the Tacoma assets, en masse, Tacoma would have sold off its equipment and inventory piece by piece, and closed up shop. Someone would have ended up with the name. But, the designers and engineers, not to mention the rest of the employees, would have been out of a job. Another guitar factory would have been closed and the efforts that have been put into Tacoma to date would have all been lost.
Now, the designers and engineers can also work on higher end Guild guitars. Guild guitars will once again be built in the U.S. (FMIC says Southern California's dry climate has turned out to be a bad place to build acoustics.) The employees' jobs have been saved, and, another U.S. guitar factory has been saved.
In some respects this is a gamble for Fender. They are hoping the Guild/Tacoma lines can carry themselves and not cost FMIC money from other endeavors.
There are always two sides to every story. It's sad that guitar people jump to the conclusion the big bad Fender is gobbling up another guitar makes. |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | Tacoma makes some nice stuff
(I especially like their acoustic bass).
It's good to hear that the instrument line (AND the jobs!) are being saved (thanks for the info/insight, dmkozak). I also agree that hopefully this will contribute to the long-deserved demise of those horrid Fender acoustics . . . |
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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | Could be Tacoma was in bad shape, but I don't think so. Aparantly this transaction has been in the works for a while, with Fender chomping at the bit to get a first class USA manufacturing facility. Tacoma does have a top notch facility. |
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December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | cliff
you will still see them. they have to have something for those $149 christmas specials.
just some info, harmony made the original acoustic series of fender acoustics back in the day. It is also rumoured that when fender could not keep up with the demand they built necks for them as well.
Harmony was the biggest guitar manufacturer in the world at one point, |
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November 2002
Posts: 3666
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | True, we gotta lotta sprucewood, and better humidity out here. Keep a few jobs in the Evergreen State, too. |
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December 2003
Posts: 13997
Location: Upper Left USA | I truly believe that Ovation needs to start another factory here in Washington. Besides making a Factory Tour easier.
Seesquare and I could be part of R&D Department.
:D |
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November 2002
Posts: 3666
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Chief Conjecturalist & Raconteur, thank you. |
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July 2004
Posts: 338
Location: Omaha | dmkozak wrote:
"There are always two sides to every story. It's sad that guitar people jump to the conclusion the big bad Fender is gobbling up another guitar makes."
Thanks for shedding some more light on the subject...you are so right! |
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OT: There goes Tacoma....
