We Have Moved
A New Home For Legendary Guitar Brand ‘Vintage®’
A message from JHS
After months of worldwide speculation regarding the future of the legendary guitar brand, John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd., the creator and owner of the Vintage® brand are delighted to announce that Germany’s leading independent music products distributor Musik Wein GmbH, will be the new brand proprietors and taking over the entire operation and management of the Vintage® brand of fretted musical instruments, amplification, FX pedals, accessories, and merchandise, along with JHS’s outstanding Classical guitar line, Santos Martinez®.
Widely acknowledged as specialists and for their expertise within guitars and related stringed instruments of all types, based in Isernhagen, Lower Saxony, Germany, Musik Wein, will as the new proprietors, handle all aspects of the brand from concepts, design, development and manufacturing to worldwide distribution, and sales of both brands.
Ralf Rohrbach and his amazing team at Musik Wein have been our Vintage® distributor in Germany and Austria since 2016, and have been instrumental, as are many of our distributors, in aspects of the development of the brand during that period.
Being so well acquainted with the 30-year legacy and impressive history of Vintage® guitar designs across acoustic, electro-acoustic, electric guitars and basses, which includes the Vintage ReIssued, ICON, Revo, ProShop, 30th Anniversary, Artist’s Signature Series, and Vintage Coaster guitars and basses, along with Vintage LAKA ukes and Vintage Bluegrass instruments Musik Wein are supremely well equipped to pick up the Vintage and Santos Martinez batons.
Santos Martinez®, where skilled craftsmen excel in the art of making outstanding, nylon strung classical and electro-classical guitars, highly respected by amateur, semi-professional and professional players around the world for their playability, visual appeal and exceptional tonal qualities.
From sitting around the campfire, to the biggest stage, the Vintage® LAKA Series of ukuleles have become synonymous for their striking aesthetics and their ability to deliver natural brightness, warmth, sustain and clear note separation in abundance, and the first choice for many professional and amateur players around the world.
Vintage Laka Sopranino, Soprano, Concert, Tenor and Baritone.
Available in Maple, Walnut, Mahogany and Bamboo Series.
Roots, World Music, Bluegrass, all terms synonymous with styles found around the world, and woven into every musical genre at some point. From British and Irish folk music, to Rags, Trad Jazz, to Rock and the old-time string band music of The Appalachians, Vintage Bluegrass covers them all, with a well curated selection of banjos, mandolins and mandolas.
With effect from Guitar Summit, Mannheim, starting Friday 25th September 2026 JHS will no longer be offering the Vintage® or Santos Martinez® brands to UK domestic or international customers, all communications concerning new business transactions should now be addressed to Musik Wein, who will contacting the international distributor community and initiating contact with stores worldwide to foster strategic partnerships, align retail operations and establish and cultivate long-term commercial relationships.
Ralf Rohrbach, CEO and Managing Director of Musik Wein Comments, “We are more than happy and indeed, honoured to announce that Musik Wein is the new owner and lead international distributor of the Vintage® and Santos Martinez® brands
Working with Vintage® since 2016 has given us wide experience of the brand, its development, its quality, ethics, and direction. We look forward to a great future together with all the enthusiastic Distributors, Musical Instrument Dealers and players who have all done so much to help the Vintage® brand become a world beater.
A big thank you goes out to JHS Executive Chairman Dennis Drumm, who for thirty years has been the driver of the Vintage brand, and has always been so supportive of Musik Wein, and who saw the potential in my company to get this outstanding brand going as the new owner.”
Ralf Rohrbach, (Music Wein CEO) Craig Thomson (JHS MD)
Dennis J. Drumm (JHS Chairman)
Dennis Drumm says “What a ride! Way back in the last century, when we created the Vintage brand, then worked with geniuses like Trev Wilkinson, the late and much-lamented Alan Entwistle, our endorsers and signature artists, and not to overlook the folks within JHS who along with me have contributed so much with ideas and enthusiasm which seemed to know no bounds, to produce instruments which sounded, looked, felt and played way up above their station in life, who’d’ve thought we’d get to today.
To all the distributors who have supported us, to the thousands of dealers around the world who have faith in Vintage, and most of all to the countless players from the first-time player, all the way up to some of the highest profile players on the planet who’ve spent their hard-earned money investing in Vintage, a massive thank you.”
Come and see us on booth 157 at Guitar Summit, Mannheim Germany September 25-27th 2026
Vintage® will also be on the show floor again at Winter NAMM 2027 welcoming back distributors, dealers and musicians from every corner of the globe who, for decades, have chosen Vintage as their instrument of choice and supported the brand as a testament to enduring quality and craftsmanship.
Welcome to “The Next Future” for Vintage® Guitars!
Contact
Musik Wein GmbH
Dieselstraße 7
30916 Isernhagen Lower Saxony
Germany W: https://www.musikwein.de
+49 511 97261-0 Office