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A Short History – Our Commitment to Quality and Tradition

We are D’off, a proudly Russian company manufacturing acoustic guitars & Russian folk instruments.

D’off was founded in 2002 by a group of music enthusiasts, as deeply entranced by guitars as gemologists are with precious diamonds! By pooling what we had together, we bought the Lunacharsky factory and went into business for ourselves. The guitars we were turning out at first were of average quality, quite similar to the old Lunacharsky models. But we soon faced a choice.

The easy path would have been to join with all the other guitar producers, the very people who were so successfully flooding the market with Chinese made goods. But we chose the difficult path, to do that which had never been done before in Russian instrument manufacturing. We decided to start creating instruments that were truly unique in design, instruments that would immediately stand out and stand apart from the knock-off designs of our competitors.

In searching for a design that truly excited us, we ran across a guitar made by the Zimmermann factory in 1885. It was very small - only about ¾ of modern standard models - but it had a tone that was simply astounding! Furthermore, we were impressed by the fact that this was not a one-of-kind master model guitar, but a production-model guitar from a common factory like our own. This convinced us that we, too, could produce an amazing sounding guitar in our facility, so long as we scrupulously refused to compromise on the high standards we already believed in and were committed to as musicians. Thus, we set to work, determined to restore and reinvigorate the unique craftsmanship and spirit of quality that, unfortunately, had too widely eroded in our country during the 20th century.

The bottom line for our instruments is, no laminates or plywood! Only solid maple and other tone woods are good enough for our instruments. Furthermore, rather than simply copying what was already being done by Martin, Gibson, LAG, Takamine and other high quality builders, we decided to reach back into the instrument traditions of Russia. To be sure, we LOVE those other guitars, but countless companies are already doing that. We know that if we are to make our mark in the world of high quality guitars and folk instruments, it will be because we offer something that cannot be found everywhere else in the world; that is, we seek to become the contemporary purveyors of the solid tradition of Russian craftsmanship in guitars and folks instrument which dates back hundreds of years.

Our name D’off says it all, for it is a name strongly associated with the old craft tradition of Russia. With this commitment in mind, we scoured our social network of musicians, builder and distributors for their advice in getting our company, D’off, up and running. Our builders have studied with some of the most renowned luthiers in the world. We are very proud that we offer to the world of acoustic musicians our high quality instruments at very reasonable prices, and invite you to become part of our growing family of D’off players.

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