Necks, bodies and pickups before whole guitars.

Schecter began as a workshop, not a guitar brand. In 1976 David Schecter opened a repair shop in Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, according to English Wikipedia, which cites a history of the company by Chris Gill in Guitar World in September 2006, and the company’s own history page. Its business was replacement parts for existing guitars: necks, bodies, pickups, bridges and pickguards. By the late 1970s, the company says, it offered more than 400 parts, but still no finished instruments. English Wikipedia’s infobox also lists two other names as founders, without a source; the cited prose names only David Schecter, and so do we.

One detail of the early story is disputed. The company says Schecter “began supplying parts to notable guitar manufacturers.” English Wikipedia, quoting Gill’s Guitar World history, says that “contrary to popular belief, Schecter never supplied parts to Fender or Gibson”; Japanese Wikipedia, citing the same article, says the opposite. We could not see the original, so we leave the question open. What is not disputed is that the parts were made for guitars of the Fender and Gibson kind, and that the shop’s early identity was as a maker of upgrades.

In 1979 Schecter began selling fully assembled guitars, built to order on Fender-style designs and sold through about 20 American retailers, the company says. They found well-known players. Japanese Wikipedia, citing Gill, says Mark Knopfler used a Schecter on Making Movies in 1980, and that one of his Schecters sold at Christie’s in 2004 for more than $50,000 for Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Centre, the highest price recorded for the brand; it adds that Pete Townshend played Schecters from 1979 until the mid-1980s. Gill’s history, as summarised there, also credits Schecter with the first black-chrome guitar hardware.

Dallas, then Shibuya.

The founder did not keep the company. In 1983 a group of Texas investors bought Schecter and moved it to Dallas, English Wikipedia and the company say; Japanese Wikipedia, citing Gill, adds that David Schecter was dismissed and that many staff, including Tom Anderson, did not move. At the January 1984 NAMM show the new owners showed a dozen Fender-style guitars and basses. The Dallas period lasted less than five years. In the company’s own careful wording, a lawsuit over Fender-style headstocks “may have essentially led to their closing in late 1986 to early 1987.”

The name was then bought by Hisatake Shibuya, the Japanese entrepreneur who founded ESP in Tokyo and later bought the Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Schecter and English Wikipedia date the purchase to 1987; ESP’s Japanese corporate history lists the acquisition of “Schecter USA” in June 1990, so we give both dates. Schecter and ESP, English Wikipedia says, remained separate companies. Under Shibuya, Schecter moved back to California and became a custom shop; the company says its output never rose above about 40 guitars a month.

The change came in 1996, when Shibuya made Michael Ciravolo, who had worked at Shibuya’s Sunset Custom Guitars shop in Hollywood, president. Ciravolo added new body shapes — the Avenger, Hellcat, Hollywood Classic and Tempest — and, after a visit to the Tokyo music fair in 1997, chose a factory in Incheon, South Korea, the company says. Guitars built there were shipped to California and set up in Schecter’s own shop. The result, launched at the summer NAMM show in 1998, was the Diamond Series: six affordable production guitars, not custom instruments, a launch also dated to 1998 by Guitar Player in 2006.

In 1999, the company says, came the Avenger A-7, a seven-string, and the C-1, which reached a wide audience when Jerry Horton of Papa Roach played one in the video for “Last Resort.” From there Schecter became a name in heavy music; its website lists Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed and Papa Roach among its artists, along with Robert Smith of The Cure and Prince.

Rock and metal guitar makers.

The seven makers in this guide build electric guitars for rock and metal players, but they are organised in very different ways.

Two belong to Fender. Jackson, founded by Grover Jackson in Glendora, California, in 1980, and Charvel, begun by Wayne Charvel as a repair shop in Azusa in 1974 and sold to Grover Jackson in 1978, have both been owned by Fender since 2002, English Wikipedia says, and it gives Scottsdale, Arizona, as the base of both.

Two are linked through one man. ESP grew from Electric Sound Products, a parts shop that Hisatake Shibuya opened in Tokyo in 1975. In 1987, English Wikipedia says — ESP’s own corporate history gives 1990 — Shibuya bought Schecter, which David Schecter had started as a repair and parts shop in Van Nuys, California, in 1976, and which now gives its custom shop’s home as Sun Valley, Los Angeles; the two have remained separate companies.

Kiesel, in Escondido, California, traces its heritage to the pickup company Lowell Kiesel founded in Southern California in 1946, which became Carvin, and took its present name when it split from Carvin in 2015. Mayones was founded in Gdańsk, Poland, in 1982 by Zenon Dziewulski, Polish Wikipedia says, and is run by the Dziewulski family.

Cort, based in Seoul, is the odd one out: a large share of its output, by its own account, carries other brands’ names, and it makes its guitars in factories it runs in Indonesia and China.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Two factories, one name.

Schecter now works on two tracks. The Diamond Series, built in Asia, is the volume business; the company sells, by its own count, in more than 150 countries and gives the original owner a limited lifetime warranty. At the top sits the USA Custom Shop. In 2012, the company says, it added 14,000 square feet to the shop, with CNC machines and a 1,500-square-foot spray booth, and at the Winter NAMM show in 2013 it introduced a USA Production Series alongside custom orders. Its website describes its anniversary models as “built in our Sun Valley Custom Shop,” and its footer gives a Sun Valley address in Los Angeles; English and Japanese Wikipedia still list Burbank as the headquarters, which appears to be out of date.

It has also moved beyond guitars. At the 2013 NAMM show Schecter showed amplifiers developed with James Brown, the designer associated with Peavey’s 5150, including the Hellraiser and the Hellwin, a signature model for Synyster Gates of Avenged Sevenfold; the company says the USA versions were built in its custom shop and the Stage models overseas. Its menu also carries a Japanese-made California Classic, and it sells Zakk Wylde’s Wylde Audio guitars through its website.

Ownership links the brand to Japan. The company’s answer to the question “Is Schecter USA the same company as Schecter Japan?” is that the two “share the same owner” but “are operated independently,” with Schecter Japan selling only in Japan and some Asian markets. Japanese Wikipedia adds that a Japanese firm licensed the Schecter name there from 1978 to 1983, before Shibuya’s purchase; we found no independent account of the current Japanese ownership structure beyond the company’s own wording.

In January 2026 the company began marking its 50th anniversary with a limited USA Custom Shop guitar and a 50th Anniversary Collection of the C-1, the Avenger and the Tempest in a “50th Gold Burst” finish, its news pages say. We found no published brand guidelines, no official colour values and no documented history of its logo.

For a design guide, Schecter shows how a parts catalogue can become a brand: the shop that sold necks and pickups now sells a name across two price worlds. Compare ESP, the Tokyo maker founded by Schecter’s later owner, and Fender, whose designs Schecter’s first parts and guitars were built around. For this guide we use black, oxblood and an anniversary gold with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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