The company that is now
Crafter was founded by
HyunKwon Park in April
1972 in the basement of
his home, four people
working in a 20 square
metre area. In that early
period, the company
produced classical
guitars for the Korean
domestic market and
these quickly earned
a good reputation,
mainly for their high
quality of sound.
The company soon had
to move to new, bigger
premises in order to
build enough guitars
to fulfill the demand
and, in 1978, it moved
again, this time from
Seoul to the new area
of Yangju-gun.  At that
time, the guitars were
branded 'Sungeum'
which means
'accomplishing the
sound' and this is
still a well known brand
in the Korean market,
today. HyunKwon's
ambition was always to
supply instruments to
guitar players throughout
the world, however, so he
then started to make
acoustic and electro-
acoustic guitars which
had more international
appeal. In 1986, Injae
Park, his elder son,
also joined the company
with HyunKwon Park
remaining as chairman.
InJae believed that
'Sungeum' was too
difficult a word for
his export market so
he decided to create
a new brand that would
be both easy to remember
and convey an appropriate
image. He chose the name
'Crafter', which has
connotations of high
quality and also pays
tribute to the craftsmen
who create the guitars.
The Crafter brand is now
registered in more than
40 countries throughout
the world. 
The latest factory,
opened in 2000, is a
7,000 square metre
building on a 12,500
square metre site. 
It is both new and
modern, enabling them
to produce the cleanest
instruments whilst
keeping to traditional
production methods that
allow the craftsmen to
care for the instruments
that they produce. The
140 strong Crafter
workforce produced
60,000 instruments in
2001, with a capacity
to build far more than
that number. Crafter
guitars are now sold
in more than 30
countries and, in 2001,
the United Kingdom became
the world's biggest
market for Crafter,
taking more than
10,000 guitars.