Glossary
The words this site uses to answer one question: which version of a brand did you buy?
- Era
- A stretch of time on one product line when the company controlling the brand and the plant building the line both stayed the same. A new era starts when either one changes, so a sale with no factory move still starts a new era. Eras are computed from dated facts and never typed in by hand. See them on any brand page.
- Brand
- The name on the headstock. A brand can outlive its founders, be sold or licensed, and be built by several makers at once.
- Product line
- A family of instruments under one brand, such as a USA-built line and an imported line. Each line has its own eras, because lines often move between plants at different times.
- Owner (controlling company)
- The company that controlled the brand name in a given year, by owning it outright or holding a licence to use it. Browse them on the companies page.
- Parent company
- The company that owned the owner. When a subsidiary holds the brand, the parent above it is recorded too.
- Plant
- A factory, workshop or contract campus where a line was built. One plant can build for many brands at the same time. See them by country or on the globe.
- Contract manufacturer
- A company that builds instruments for brands it does not own. The badge belongs to one company and the building to another. Many imported lines are built this way.
- Licence
- Permission to use a brand name, often limited to a territory or a period, without owning it.
- Reliability grades
- Every source is graded: primary (the company itself or a document from the time), secondary (published reporting and reference works), community (wikis and collector forums) or unverified. A fact is never graded higher than its best source. See every source.
- Disputed
- When credible sources disagree, each version is kept as its own record. One is marked preferred and used for eras; the others are shown as alternatives, never merged or deleted.
- Year ranges
- Ranges are half-open: 1956–1966 runs from 1956 up to 1966, when the next era takes over, so neighbouring eras meet without overlapping. “Now” means still running. An undated fact says so rather than guessing a year.
- Location precision
- How exactly a plant’s place is known: address, city, region or only country. Maps draw plants known only by region or country as rings at its centre.