Klira
The Klira company was a German manufacturer of stringed instruments from 1887 to around 1982 . Initially, the company specialized in the construction of violins , violas and cellos , but from around the middle of the 20th century it specialized in acoustic and electric guitars . In the 1960s, Klira was one of the leading German guitar manufacturers alongside competitors Höfner , Framus , Hoyer and Hopf .
Company history
Klira was founded in 1887 by the German violin maker Johannes Klier in Schönbach (now Luby ). The place in the Czech Egerland has been a center of plucked and stringed instruments since the 18th century. In 1914, Klier's son Otto Josef took over the company. In 1950, the company, like some of its competitors from Schönbach (including the instrument maker Höfner), moved to Bubenreuth in Franconia as a result of the Second World War . There, the focus of production was shifted from string instruments to guitars. Initially acoustic guitars were produced, and from the 1960s the range was expanded to include electrically amplified guitars . To a lesser extent, Klira also produced electric basses , mostly copies of the model 500/1 , also known as the “Beatles Bass”, designed by competitor Höfner . In the sixties, Klira was able to record its greatest sales successes due to the increased demand for electric guitars and the expansion of the export business. In the following decade, however, due to increasing competition from musical instruments of Asian origin, sales fell so far that the company had to cease operations in 1982 after almost 100 years of existence. However, the Klira TG-58 Jazz-Tone model was still being built by hand in the company until 1984 . With only about 30 copies, the model is the rarest Klira guitar and also one of the last tenor guitar models produced.
Distribution and importance of the brand
Klira had been popular on the musical instrument market since the 1950s as a supplier of affordable entry-level guitars. The best-known models of the company that are manufactured in large numbers are probably the solid-body electric guitars of the Triumphator Electric type , which were offered by the Quelle mail-order company from 1962 to 1971 under their own brand (i.e. without the name Klira) through their catalogs. It is often wrongly claimed that these are made of plywood. However, there is actually solid wood underneath the vinyl coating. In 1966 the new price of the Triumphator model at Quelle was 198 DM, which made the instrument affordable for its target group, mostly young guitar beginners. However, other Klira instruments were also available from regular music stores.
Today, used Klira guitars can be found in specialist music shops and occasionally at flea markets . The required prices are, depending on the condition of the instruments, mostly slightly above the new price of the entry-level guitars available on the market, but they can also be significantly higher for rarer or particularly well-preserved instruments (status: 2007).
Klira electric guitars are valued by some guitarists and guitar lovers because of their dry, slightly muffled and low- sustain sound, for example for music in the style of beat music from the sixties.
literature
- Tony Bacon & Dave Hunter: Totally Guitar - the definitive guide. Backbeat Books, London 2004, ISBN 1-871547-81-4 (guitar encyclopedia in English)
- Electric guitars. Special issue of the magazine Guitar & Bass on the history of the electric guitar (p. 60 ff, p. 155 f). MM-Musik-Media-Verlag, Ulm 2004, ISSN 0934-7674 .