Silvertone (brand)
Silvertone is a brand created and promoted by Sears for its line of consumer electronics and musical instruments from 1916 to 1972.[1]
Product type
The rights to the Silvertone brand were purchased by South Korean corporation Samick Music[3] in 2001. Samick made new musical instruments under the Silvertone brand and relaunched some historic models. In 2020, RBI Music was appointed the exclusive worldwide distributor of the Silvertone brand,[4] and in December 2021, RBI acquired all rights to the brand.[5]
Musical instruments under the Silvertone name are electric and acoustic guitars, basses, accordions, and ukuleles.[6]
History[edit]
Beginnings[edit]
Sears filled for Silvertone as a trademark in late 1915 to be used as a house brand for a line phonographs and records. It was approved in early 1916 with their first models appearing in their Spring 1916 catalog.[1][7] Beginning in the 1920s, the brand was expanded to include Silvertone radios and again expanded in the 1930s to musical instruments, superseding the previously-used Oxford branding.[1]