The company that is now Crafter was founded by HyunKwon Park in 1972 in the basement of his home. In that early period, the company produced classical guitars for the Korean domestic market and these quickly earned a solid reputation, specifically for their high quality of sound.
The company soon moved to larger site in order to be able to produce enough guitars to fulfill the demand. Demand grew rapidly and in 1978, it moved again, this time from Seoul to the new area of Yangju-gun.
At that time, the guitar brand was 'Sungeum' which means 'accomplishing the sound' and this is still a well known brand in the Korean market. HyunKwon's vision was to create a product that had international appeal and , so he designed both acoustic, and acoustic/electric guitars suited for that market.
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, and has gained international recognition for quality and sound.
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 while 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.
The Crafter line has always emphasized quality first – great care is taken in the making of each guitar so as to produce the finest instruments possible. A guitar is only released to be sold when it has passed the rigorous inspection process. Any guitars that do not make “the grade” are destroyed.
InJae Park has a passion for designing great guitars and a love of building them. He has developed and designed many new models that are protected by patents in Europe and the USA.
He is eager to hear players' requests for new products so that he can provide the instruments that are most needed. In this way, Crafter developed new Travel guitars. The model TRV-23 has a solid sitka spruce top and a full sound, notwithstanding its small body. It also featurse a cutaway, requested by many players to enable them to reach the higher notes more easily.
InJae Park believes that building instruments of the highest quality, of the best value, listening to the needs of the market and providing a continuous supply is the way to continue the progress and success that Crafter is enjoying throughout the world today.
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