Jolana

Jolana was in the period from about 1959 to 1989 a brand for Czechoslovakian electric guitars and basses.

History

The production of electric guitars in Czechoslovakia began in 1953, when Josef Ružička took over the management of the Blatné Resonet plant. The first, built by Resonet electric guitar was a lap steel model called Akord, which in the Arioso found his successor in 1955. Also, an electric bass called Arco was produced.

At this time already the first electric guitars were accepted by the market without resonance body ( Solid Body ) in the U.S., and as a solid-body model was also designed with Resonet. This guitar called Grazioso based conceptually on the Fender Stratocaster, but asked no copy dar. Rather Leo Fender's ideas were taken as the starting point for your own solutions; Details such as the vibrato system even put a complete in-house development represents the Grazioso was a great success - not only in Czechoslovakia. So it was exported during the late 1950s in large quantities to the UK, where there was a ban on imports of U.S. goods at this time. The British importer Selmer drove the instrument under the name of Futurama, and it was the beginner's instrument of some later British superstars like George Harrison and Jimmy Page.

In the years 1959-60 the guitar production was relocated to the new Neoton plant after Hradec Králové and the Grazioso replaced by the simplified models and Star Star III, which were still to 1963 exported as Futurama Futurama II and III to the UK. Due to the deterioration of the quality of the demand for the export of these new guitars made ​​but gradually and marketing increasingly focused on the countries of the Eastern bloc. Soon the guitars produced at Neoton were sold under the brand name Jolana.

To be able to satisfy explosive increase in demand for electric guitars and basses by the beat boom of the early 1960s in the countries of the Eastern bloc, were soon in two other plants at the sites Horovice (from 1962) and Krnov (from 1965) jolana instruments produced.

Production ended in the turn - time in 1989. Society NBE Corporation (New Bohemian Electric Corporation ) was founded in 1999. The production of electric stringed instruments was recorded in Drozdov two years later. First there were double basses for society NS Design from the USA and later bass guitar Spector. The Jolana brand there again since 2001.

The Ges NBE markets in the Czech Republic and some other European countries following brands: Spector, NS Design, Schaller, WD, ESP, Ashdown, TECH 21

Models

The specificity of some models is that for guitar and bass of the same corpus was used, production costs lowered. However, the two versions are different in this case in the scaling of the neck and the specific hardware.

Horovice 1Gitarre and Bass