The oldest surviving maker of ukuleles

actadh

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Hmm, although Martin began production of ukes in 1915, one year before Samuel Kamaka opened his first shop in 1916 - they ceased production for a good length of time (starting in 1995) - so their claim is a little iffy. They may be the oldest "surviving" maker of ukes, but they aren't the oldest continuous maker of ukes.
 
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Isn't Kamaka the oldest surviving Ukulele manufacturer, particularly if you think in terms of continuous manufacture ?

http://www.kamakahawaii.com/history.html

I always through this, too. Kamaka is the oldest continuous manufacturer of ukuleles. Martin totally abandoned the ukulele for, what, thirty or forty years. LOL.

Also, Martin was making guitars long prior to ukuleles, so including those non-uke years, I suppose they can claim to be the "oldest". But, for pure ukulele makers, unsullied by other stringed instruments, Kamaka is king.

It should be noted that, while Martin re-introduced the ukulele in the past decade from Nazareth, PA, , now they are reducing their Nazareth-made ukes to customs and one-off small series, and have shipped out the vast majority of manufacturing to foreign made. Kamaka, conversely has always been made in the USA-- hell, even before Hawaii was USA! LOL.

I give Kamaka great respect for making only ukuleles, through thick and thin economic times, during both booms and busts for the instrument, always in their Hawaii shop. That's some real ukulele provenance.
 
Hmm, although Martin began production of ukes in 1915, one year before Samuel Kamaka opened his first shop in 1916 - they ceased production for a good length of time (starting in 1995) - so their claim is a little iffy. They may be the oldest "surviving" maker of ukes, but they aren't the oldest continuous maker of ukes.

Also, Sam Sr. was making ukuleles with Manuel Nunes well before 1915. When did he begin making them on his own? Could it have been before the 1916 opening of his "shop"?
This also makes me wonder where Martin got the idea for ukuleles. And when?
 
Kamaka, conversely has always been made in the USA-- hell, even before Hawaii was USA! LOL.

As an outsider from the UK I've found a lot of interest in what has gone on in the US and your way of life - even visited a couple of times - hence I decided to do a check on Hawaii.

Hawaii became a State of the USA in 1959 but has been USA territory since 1898. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_of_Hawaii

I kind of see where Martin might be coming from but Kamaka has my vote.
 
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awesome read but I never thought martin as oldest maker, only kamaka came to mind, but overall both companys make great ukuleles
 
It just occurred to me that as much as I love vintage Martin ukes, I have never even tried the new ones. Do they compare well with the vintage stuff?
 
Martin totally abandoned the ukulele for, what, thirty or forty years. LOL.

Well not totally. Martin ukuleles were still built under special orders submitted through their dealers. So it seems they kept their jigs and such in place for all those years, just not for use as regular production ukuleles, only special orders. The years Martin confirms that no production was available at all was between 1995 and 2002, when after they started up production of the S-0 again in '02.

I do know someone locally to me who has two of those "special order" ukes from Martin built during the years where regular production was not in place. One is a Style 3M Soprano and the other is Style 3K Concert. When I first saw them I thought they were mint condition ukes from the '20's or '30's until he showed me his order slips from the local Martin dealer from the 80's. I fell in love with the Style 3 Koa Concert, it was just spectacular! I asked him for first right of refusal on both, but assured me he wouldn't be selling either one...
 
It just occurred to me that as much as I love vintage Martin ukes, I have never even tried the new ones. Do they compare well with the vintage stuff?

It depends on who you ask and what they are comparing... For instance, it's hard to replicate a very old wood (for discussion, let's say 50 years and older) aging on contemporary instruments. Though some manufacturers, Martin included, use a process called torrefaction to age their wood on their guitars (not sure if they ever did a uke with it yet, or if they ever will). But that aside, what I can attest to is that my over half century-old Martin Style-0 soprano has a very sweet tone combined with that bark when you dig into the strings that is unique unto itself compared to many newer Mahogany sopranos I own/owned or have otherwise played, save maybe for one Laughlin uke I had a chance to play that had nearly every sound, feel and vibe of a Vintage Martin.

Before playing the ukulele, I played guitar for over 35 years and for acoustics I owned only Martins, (the exception being one early '70's Yamaha Martin-copy which too was a great guitar). So when I started playing ukulele it seemed natural to seek out a Martin uke, but have enjoyed playing and owning other brands too. I can say that I very much enjoy the newer Martin ukes and feel they are well built and sound great (both Nazareth and Navojoa built). Even my HPL 0X Bamboo uke which is a recent acquisition I have a very hard time putting it down once I start playing it. As a matter of fact, I spent a few hours playing it last night while learning a new song and it's just wonderful in every manner.

I would say if you're interested in owning a Martin uke, try playing both vintage and contemporary models. You might find out as I did that they are both great to own and play... I even enjoyed owning or playing ukes that are also built as Martin replicas/tributes/"in the theme of" such as Kiwaya, Timms, Laughlin, Ohana, etc...
 
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It just occurred to me that as much as I love vintage Martin ukes, I have never even tried the new ones. Do they compare well with the vintage stuff?

They're different. I'm not going to say whether that's better or worse - the new Martin C1K concert ukes tend to be a good koa option for a mid-range price, but to my ear the sound is closer to a modern Hawaiian koa uke than a vintage Martin one. And the few Nazareth-made modern Martins I've encountered have been great, but definitely a sound and play factor all their own. The closest comparison in a modern build to a vintage Martin I've encountered is probably Kiwaya - with my eyes closed, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between my Kiwaya soprano and an old Martin style 0.
 
It just occurred to me that as much as I love vintage Martin ukes, I have never even tried the new ones. Do they compare well with the vintage stuff?

I own both; a vintage style 1 tenor and a modern style 2 tenor. Even though both sound great, they are very different. My vintage Martin gives off more of a mellow tone, a tone and vibration which is common to many vintage Martin tenor ukuleles. It's difficult to describe, I do prefer the tone of my vintage Martin over the contemporary one... but of course that is all personal preference.
 
I have a Martin S1 and have previously had an OXK and C1K. I'll say this.

I just took delivery of a Ken Timms 'Style O' soprano. I took off the Aquila's and strung up with Martin M600's. Not a fan of Aquilas. Anyhoo, once it settled enough to have a play... I did... for quite some time. I then picked up the Martin and it immediately sounded muted in comparison. I got the Martin for a good price new however the Timms was cheaper.

So tell me how a company making ukuleles for a hundred years can't make a ukulele that beats a guy in a garage/shed? For less! I hazard a guess it would beat the 2K as it's very very light and responsive. I have also seen videos of it compared to the fabled vintage Martins.

Short story long I'm a happy uke player. :D
 
It should be noted that, while Martin re-introduced the ukulele in the past decade from Nazareth, PA, , now they are reducing their Nazareth-made ukes to customs and one-off small series, and have shipped out the vast majority of manufacturing to foreign made. Kamaka, conversely has always been made in the USA-- hell, even before Hawaii was USA! LOL.

To be fair, Martin hasn't exactly outsourced production to a third world country. They've operated their own factory in Mexico, (in an area with a long standing tradition of luthery), for over 25 years. Heck, even Mercedes, BMW and Toyota build cars in the US now. ;-)
 
To be fair, Martin hasn't exactly outsourced production to a third world country. They've operated their own factory in Mexico, (in an area with a long standing tradition of luthery), for over 25 years.

They still outsourced the production to a country with substantially lower wages. Whether or not that affected quality and quality control is probably a controversial question whose answer can't be generalized. I don't own Martin ukes, so I can't really comment on this particular case, but I used to buy other products (unrelated to musical instruments) where the quality significantly dropped after the production was moved to low cost countries (none of them being actual development countries), so the claim doesn't strike me as hard to believe.
 
They still outsourced the production to a country with substantially lower wages. Whether or not that affected quality and quality control is probably a controversial question whose answer can't be generalized. I don't own Martin ukes, so I can't really comment on this particular case, but I used to buy other products (unrelated to musical instruments) where the quality significantly dropped after the production was moved to low cost countries (none of them being actual development countries), so the claim doesn't strike me as hard to believe.

I have a T1K (Mexico) and a T2K (Nazareth, PA). The T1K compares favorably to the T2K on sound. The T2K has perhaps a bit more nuance, but the T1K is louder. The finish of the 2 is obviously better. I'm hard pressed to say it is $1,000 better.
 
They still outsourced the production to a country with substantially lower wages. Whether or not that affected quality and quality control is probably a controversial question whose answer can't be generalized. I don't own Martin ukes, so I can't really comment on this particular case, but I used to buy other products (unrelated to musical instruments) where the quality significantly dropped after the production was moved to low cost countries (none of them being actual development countries), so the claim doesn't strike me as hard to believe.

Every Navojoa-built Martin that I have owned (Guitar and Ukulele) has met or exceeded any expectation in build-quality that I would have for their instruments coming out of Nazareth. As pointed out, Martin hasn't just sent specs to a place that assemblers put instruments together with a sheet of plans, they basically have established another factory that replicates their Nazareth manner of building with a factory that has been noted for their quality instrument manufacturing. I think it's relatively been proven that it matters less where an instrument is built (geographically), when the build itself is done following a defined regiment that produces a quality build. Not just Martin, but I would also example how the Thailand-built KoAloha Opio compares very well to any other non-Thailand (Hawaiian) built KoAloha because of how the Thailand factory was established and run by KoAloha.
 
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