Del Rey - Guitars

(By Jimmy Noise / Sep 2012)

The Del Rey Brand has been clouded in terms of its history and origins. There has been a lot of wrong information written about Del Rey guitars. It is one of those brands that has always been accepted as Teisco built guitar. It has been assumed that Del Rey guitars and Teisco Del Rey guitars are the same manufacturer. However this is not the case. The following will identify some of the different models and their manufacturers. The company history has also been a bit mystery, which is why there is so much confusion.

The Del Rey brand was owned by WMI Corporation. The company was owned by Barry Hornstien and Sylvain Wiendling. The Del Rey brand first appeared on some of the first Teisco models that WMI Corporation imported. (See logo below) The Del Rey was Sylvain Wiendling idea. They wanted to add something to the Teisco name that was more familiar to the American public and something that could be more identifiable, as Teisco didn’t mean anything. Guitars at this time were still referenced to the term Spanish guitars. Del Rey is Spanish for "of the king". So the name fit with what they were looking for. The king part inspired the crown as a logo.

In 1965 the WMI Corporation became the exclusive importer of Teisco Del Rey guitars and became one of the largest guitar importers of the mid to late 1960’s. The logo used from then was changed with the Teisco being large and the Del Rey being small. During this time the Del Rey brand ceased being used.

In 1967 the Del Rey brand re-emerged. The reason for this was that WMI Corporation was importing guitars from other manufactures other than Teisco. They couldn’t use the Teisco Del Rey name on guitars that were not made by Teisco. So the Del Rey name was used for these guitars. They Del Rey guitars during this period were supplied by various manufactures in Japan, but not Teisco.

Teisco Supplied Models

Del Rey – Teisco Logo

The first Del Rey logo used on Teisco models was around 1964 - 1965. These would be the only Teisco built guitars to have the large Del Rey name.


WG-4L	TRG	ET-300	ET-300


MJ-2	E-100	ET-100

Models Supplied by Idol

Logo for Idol Guitars supplied between 1967 and 1968. For more information on Idol made guitars see the Idol Guitars web page.


ET-200	EB-240

Models Supplied by Kawai

Pending!.


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Models Supplied by Other Japanese Manufactures

The following guitars are still to be confirmed where they were manufactured. Their construction differs from Teisco, but the Tulip design has been copied from Teisco.



E-110	E-200	ET-200	K.ET-200	ET-300	EB-110


EV-2T	EV-3T

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(Last Revised: 4^th of Sep 2012.)