One of Carvin’s five retail stores is located in the same building as the factory, but the company does have international distribution through retailers in other countries, which explains the surprise some folks experience when they see a Carvin display at a NAMM show.Ī small display of classic Carvin gear (including tube amps from ’53) greets a visitor to the retail store. VG recently visited the factory to check out the manufacturing techniques and products proffered by the special-order specialists. The company moved to Covina in 1949, then to Escondido in ’67, and in ’95 it occupied a new 80,000 square-foot facility in San Diego.
The history of Carvin has already been covered in VG‘s “The Different Strummer” ( VG, August ’92), and the growth of the Southern California manufacturer over the decades has resulted in several relocations of manufacturing facilities. Carvin’s against-the-grain manufacturing and marketing approach has been incongruous, and it has served the company well ever since founder Lowell Kiesel began building pickups in his Los Angeles garage in 1946. “Well, that’s okay…” some guitar enthusiasts might observe, “but some guitar factories are putting out that many guitars per day.”īut what if those 600 instruments per month are almost all custom-made? And what if the instruments and gear are sold directly to the retail customer (in the U.S.)? And what if the company has been successfully doing business in its own unique way for over a half-century?
Imagine a company that builds 600 high-quality guitars and basses per month, with a normal backorder count of 700.
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