VALENCIA CLASSICAL GUITARS and VIOLINS
Below is a selection of some of our models
All Valencia Guitars are supplied with this FREE INSTRUCTIONAL DVD - which features the Rock House Method, New York and gives the purchaser FREE web membership to the Rock House website and a range of FREE benefits. (Excludes Valencia Custom Series). The DVD’s are designed to quickly and easily get the purchaser to a basic level of playing skill and encourage them to take formal music lessons and/or purchase more advanced DVD’s or printed teaching material.
The brand name Valencia was the brainchild of Dutchy (Geoff) Turner and Lou Toppano, two Australian music industry identities. They purchased some Classic guitars under their new brand name and began selling these in Toppano’s music store in Swanston Street, Melbourne and ultimately through the Toppano wholesale division. In 1978 upon the retirement of Dutchy & Lou the wholesale division was sold to Metcalf Wholesale. Dutchy continued working part-time in the industry for Brian Metcalf and in turn part-time for Kevin Hague, Australasian Music Supplies (AMS). In 1984 Kevin purchased the controlling interest of Metcalf Wholesale and merged it into AMS and with that came the Valencia brand name (and Bruno Scalzo who is still with AMS today!). In 1986 the balance of the purchase of Metcalf Wholesale was completed giving Kevin/AMS 100% ownership of the Valencia name. From 1984 onwards our Valencia models were manufactured by Samick Musical Instruments (Korea), the largest guitar manufacturing plant in the world at that time and the Valencia brand and sales continued to grow at an enormous rate. By the late 80’s, manufacturing of high quality, entry level Classic guitars in Korea was cost prohibitive, so in 1989 production was moved to two separate factories in Taiwan. Also during the 80’s and into the 90’s there were forays into Acoustics (and even Electrics and Basses) under the Valencia brand but we eventually decided that the Valencia brand did not suit these styles of guitars. In 1996 Kevin formed an alliance with 6 Asian friends to investigate the then emerging Chinese market on musical instruments and accessories. A company, Team International (China) Co. Ltd., was ultimately established for the purpose of sourcing manufacturers and working with them to provide quality products. The success of this venture into China was enormous and today Team International has 53 employees of which 18 are full time inspectors who spend most of their working time at our factories quality controlling all products.
By late 1997 we were happy with the quality and price of Classic Guitars from China, so the Valencia brand moved to it’s third country of manufacture - China. In 1998 at Team International’s Shareholders’ Meeting, a fellow shareholder noted the huge quantities of Valencia Guitars going into the Australian market and asked Kevin if he could use our brand for his own distribution company in Taiwan. Within one hour of this request, the Valencia brand was destined for the world market - Kevin decided to license the Valencia brand to Team International to sell into world markets (other than Australia of course!!).
Today Valencia Guitars are sold in over 60 countries around the world and distributed by many of the largest wholesalers in their respective markets. They are manufactured by three different guitar manufacturers in Southern China and quality control in these factories is overseen by our own staff.
