The creative path of every musician is marked by a quest for a distinctive style, a style that reflects the player’s musical identity. All musicians strive to be unique, extraordinary, and original, and demand the same qualities from the musical instruments they play. The desire to be original was the driving force behind the creation of Furch Guitars.

The Furch Guitars story began a long time before the company was officially established. In the 1970s, Frantisek Furch, a metalworker by day and a musician by night, faced the dilemma of complete unavailability of high-quality musical instruments in the then socialist Czechoslovakia. Because importing an instrument from overseas was too complicated and excessively costly, he resorted to his metalworking skills and used an old drum to make his first banjo. A few years later, Frantisek also made his first acoustic guitar, in the roundback style, with a spruce top plate from an old piano. The response of other musicians to his first guitar was very favorable, and prompted a high number of Frantisek’s friends to commission a guitar from him. Initially, Frantisek made several prototypes of roundback guitars, a type that was very popular and in high demand at that time, generating even more interest in his instruments.

Even though the former communist regime prohibited any private entrepreneurial activity, Frantisek’s passion for musical innovations and high-quality manufacturing on the one hand, and musicians’ demand for custom instruments on the other, proved to be much stronger. In 1981, Frantisek defied the authorities and set up a one-man garage-based manufacture to produce musical instruments bearing the “F” trademark, which has adorned, with some modifications, the headstocks of Furch guitars to this day.

During the 1980s, Frantisek made some 100 instruments, mostly roundback guitars with a composite parabolic body, as well as several mandolins. Frantisek’s work earned him the reputation of a first-rate guitar builder on the Czech music scene, and his instruments became the choice of many top musicians. Despite various restrictions imposed by the former regime, Frantisek was able to sustain his guitar manufacturing business and make it flourish.

With more than 60 employees, Furch Guitars is today headed by Petr Furch who continues to lead the company on a path of designing and producing top-class instruments. The company produces some 8,000 top-quality instruments annually which are sold on five continents with an extended three-year warranty. As a technology leader in the manufacture of premium-quality acoustic guitars, Furch Guitars is committed to the continuous introduction of new designs and construction features, the use of state-of-the-art robotic technologies, and the implementation of the outcome of proprietary research and development with a view to further improving the acoustic qualities of its instruments. The high quality of Furch guitars is best evidenced by references from topnotch musicians, such as Al di Meola, Suzanne Vega, Per Gessle, Glen Hansard, Calum Graham, Zdenek Bina, Frantisek Cerny, and David Koller.