Home of the Chinese Resos?

[ricochet]

I think this company, "Shanghai Xin Min Commercial Co., LTD." is the maker of many, perhaps most or all, of the Chinese resonator guitars. There are a boatload of links to this company around the Web. Their claim that their luthiers has (sic) 8 years of experience manufacturing these points to 2001, when the Johnson (U.S. brand of Music Link, Inc.) resos switched from being made by Amistar in the Czech Republic to being made in China under the AXL name.

http://dunianen.en.ecplaza.net/

[zhyla]

Interesting... Rico, you could probably start your own resonator brand with these guys if you wanted to.

[ricochet]

HA! I'm sure they would put any name or logo on them, for a price. If you look around, you can find many small private name brands on what are obviously the same instruments. (At a wide range of prices.)

[ricochet]

Googling also turned up an example of a shipping manifest that was a real one for a shipment by these guys to a music store in the U.S. that does put their name on resos. The container had 68 cartons of resonator guitars in it (I'd think 1 carton = 1 guitar, but could be wrong), and had a shipping weight of 1200 kilos on it.

Never know what you'll find on the Web.

[tinsmith]

Looks like all twelve fret though.......like the 14.

[ricochet]

If you Google that company's name and look around, on various places they show every kind and style of metal bodied reso that's been imported into the United States. I think this could be the source of them all. (The Chinese ones, anyway.) The plain, unsandblasted 14 fret Style O lookalike sold as the Johnson JM-998 and Rogue Classic Brass Body Resonator (among many others) is shown, as are the tricones. They also show a wide variety of other stringed instruments similar to what the Music Link/Johnson/AXL sites have. They may just be a broker/exporter calling themselves a manufacturer, though. I discovered 10 years ago that's what the hundreds of "engine manufacturers" in India are.

[jellyroll baker]

Interesting....

Anyone want to invest in a sure fire money makin', reso-importin' scheme???