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
Teisco Supplied Models
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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.
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WG-4L |
TRG |
ET-300 |
ET-300 |
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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.
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ET-200 |
EB-240 |
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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.
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E-110 |
E-200 |
ET-200 |
K.ET-200 |
ET-300 |
EB-110 |
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EV-2T |
EV-3T |
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in Japan 1960’s Guitars Main Page
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(Last Revised: 4th of Sep 2012.)
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2013 MAI Music Publications