The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Q&A, discussion, and information for the labels covered by The Guitar Gallery (Specifically and exclusively guitars made by Matsumoku up to 1987)
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PostPosted: Tue 04 Feb 2003 02:15 PM 
Okay, I have another question. I know that Samick now owns the Vantage trademark. I also know the Vantage was manufactured by Matsumoku prior to that. My question is, who owned the Vantage trademark at that time? Was it a Matsumoku house brand, or were they manufacturing them under license for someone else? If so, who was behing the tradmark Vantage? Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Just curious!


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PostPosted: Tue 04 Feb 2003 04:59 PM 
The info I have indicates they were distributed by Music Industries Corporation of Floral Park, New York, beginning in 1987. I can't find anything in my books, etc. that tells me who owned the name before that. What I have does not tell me how long MIC held the name, or if they still do.

I am not too sure there were any more Japanese models made after 1987.


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PostPosted: Tue 04 Feb 2003 07:32 PM 
I wrote to Samick to try to sort this out and this is the reply I got. There is an obvious language barrier but I think he is saying that Samick has owned the trademark since 1985. He might be saying that Vantage was a Canadian brand before that but I'm not clear on the meaning. See if this sheds any light on anything....
-------
Dear Sir,

Well received your email with many thanks and so much for your compliment about our product.
But..
I am awfully regret to inform you that I couldn't get any info on that.
It's because we've taken the vatage guitar's bland from Canada since 1985.
In that result, we don't know the previous guitar.
Sorry again for this inconvenience and
Hope your great playing.

Have a nice one!

With best regards
Andrew Shin


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PostPosted: Tue 04 Feb 2003 08:01 PM 
Samick could very well have bought the name from the original nameholder back in 1985. I do know that the Japanese models were manufactured by Matsumoku, and this could have been no later than 1987 when the plant was sold to Singer.

There was at least one US distributor before the shift in production but I cannot find the one sentence in the one article in the one book/magazine that I remember seeing this in. :o It would not surpise me if there was a Canadian distributor that in fact also held the trademark.

I have noticed that there seems to be a bit of a gap as far as Vantage is concerned between Japanese and Korean production. I seem to remember reading something about the name being in limbo for a short while between owners. If I finally find that darn paragraph I'll post it here.


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PostPosted: Tue 04 Feb 2003 08:31 PM 
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Virtuoso

Joined: Sat 09 Mar 2002 07:00 PM
Posts: 139
Location: the Canadian Prairies
An '81 ad in a Guitar Player I just looked at said they were distributed at the time by Music Technology Inc of Garden City, NY. They're the same company that was a partner with/US distributor for the Italian keyboard maker Crumar at the time, and would market the early digital synth the Synergy. I think they may have gone out of business sometime in '85 or early '86, which would make sense if Samick did acquire the Vantage name around then. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a separate Canadian distributor or distributors for Vantage up here, just as there were seemingly Canada only import lines in the '70s and '80s like El Degas and Mann.


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PostPosted: Tue 11 Feb 2003 05:04 PM 
I just checked at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office's Trademark Registry.

They have an entry for "Vantage: Musical instruments, namely acoustic and electric guitars, amplifiers, guitar cables, headphones, musical effect pedals and echo machines."

It is registered to a company called

JAM INDUSTRIES LTD.
378 ISABEY AVENUE
VILLE ST. LAURENT
H4T 1W1
QUEBEC

According to this, they filed for the trademark on 1978-04-20. and applied to have it renewed on January 18, 1995. Could that be why Samick now uses the "Samick" trademark in Canada, rather than Vantage?

To quote Lewis Carroll, "There's a thought, I wonder what it means!" Does this shed any light on they mystery, or does it just make things more confusing?

Does this mean that Vantage was a Canadian company, farming out its manufacturing to Matsumoto? Or could this be a completely different company?


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PostPosted: Tue 11 Feb 2003 07:19 PM 
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Virtuoso

Joined: Sat 09 Mar 2002 07:00 PM
Posts: 139
Location: the Canadian Prairies
The address sounds familiar, so I suspect they were just a distributor for Vantage and other lines. I haven't seen any Vantages up here that weren't offered in the States as well.


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PostPosted: Tue 11 Feb 2003 08:53 PM 
I think you're right. Later on, I checked out the US Trademark Registry and I found that Vantage was a trademark of Music Technology Inc. from 1979 to 1989. Samick filed for the US rights to the Vantage trademark in 1990 and still holds it today.

I imagine the Canadian distributor for the Vantage line (Jam Industries) registered the trademark in Canada and has held onto it for whatever reason. It is still in their name today in Canada.

So, to answer my own question, Vantage was a trademark of Music Technology Inc. who had their products manufactured under license by Matsumoto in Japan.

It doesn't make any difference to how my guitar plays but it's nice to know the background.

Thanks folks!


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PostPosted: Wed 12 Feb 2003 10:11 AM 
Sounds like you have done quite a bit of homework! I would be interested in how you went about checking the trademark registries. It sounds like it would come in rather handy at times!

I guess this is strong incentive to start filling out the history behind the lines I'm trying to cover here. I imagine if I can't find a volunteer Japanese translator I'll shop around and hire one to flesh out the "maker's" side of the story. I am currently going back through the entire Models section and trying to clean it up, correcting errors, and maybe make it a little easier to navigate. It represents about a third of this site's traffic so I guess it's worth it!

Thanks for the hard work!


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PostPosted: Wed 12 Feb 2003 04:20 PM 
You can search the history of any US trademark, active or inactive, online using the TESS database. Here is a link to it:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=t ... vpk5c8.1.1

And you can search for active and inactive Canadian trademarks since 1865 here:

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/cgi-bin/sc_co ... earch_e.pl

It takes some patience, because the same trademark can be used for hundreds of different products. For example, Vantage has been used for everything from musical instruments to cigarettes to veterinary medicines to mortuary equipment. Still, if you're willing to wade through it you'll find what you are looking for eventually.

Hope this helps!


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