- For a list of TAMA acoustics models, see Portal:TAMA acoustics series.
The TAMA acoustics series is a line of acoustic guitars produced by and for Hoshino Gakki and sold by the company alongside guitars bearing the Ibanez brand as well as other brands such as Cimar. Most of the TAMA-branded guitars were produced in Hoshino's own TAMA Seisakusho (i.e. TAMA Manufacturing Plant) located in Aichi, Japan. This plant was run by a fully-owned Hoshino subsidiary named TAMA Seisakusho, Co. Inc. which was created in 1962. The brand name "TAMA" was created by the founder Yoshitaro Hoshino to honor his wife Tama Hoshino.
History[]
In the beginning the TAMA plant produced primarily electric guitars and amplifiers which were primarily sold domestically in Japan under a variety of brand names. In the early 1970s as Japan's electric guitar craze waned, the company began producing acoustic guitars which it sold under the TAMA brand.
In the following years the line was filled out with steel-string and nylon-stringed classical instruments. The steel-string acoustics were more or less copies of Martin guitars. TAMA’s of that period can be identified by the full written logo on the headstock (except the classical guitars).
In 1977 TAMA presented a new line of guitars with a different design, covering a T-style logo on a “not-Martin-like” headstock.
In 1978 TAMA introduced their last guitar, a TG-190 as a limited top-of-the-line model. The end came in 1979 when the production of TAMA guitars unfortunately was stopped because of economical reasons or in favor of the Ibanez product line. The existing stock of fine tone woods was sold to Ibanez, who went on producing guitars in the same factory with the same workers and with the same design under a new line, called Artwood series. Today the design can still be seen on the actual Artwood guitars.
TAMA produced 47 acoustic models, perhaps more, but the official quantity sold by Ibanez is only 26 models which appear in the catalogs from 1974 to 1979.