Like Selmer, Bell or Rose-Morris, Rosetti is one of the very well known British musical instrument distributors of the 20th Century. The company was formed by Arthur Rosetti in the 1920s, but in the period on which this site focuses, was run by Czech-Canadian Michael Hunka who had married into the family.
During this period, Rosetti sold guitars built by Egmond in the Netherlands, and Hoyer in Germany; some with their own Rosetti branding. Egmond guitars in particular were hugely popular, and many of the guitar icons of the 1960s and 70s, started out on these instruments; both Keith Richards and George Harrison got new Rosetti acoustics in 1958, with Paul McCartney buying a Solid 7 in 1960. Other guitars included the Lucky 7, Airstream, Bass 7 and Bass 8.
Rosetti also sold guitars by other manufacturers such as British builder Fenton Weill. But during the 1960s Rosetti were the main UK distributors for a number of important imported brands, most notably Epiphone from around 1963, and Hagstrom from about 1969. Rosetti remained the UK Epiphone distributor after production moved from America to Japan, and up to the late 1970s.
Like so many other guitar distributors in the mid-late 1960s, Rosetti continued to stock re-badged guitars from big manufacturers worldwide. Like Rose-Morris and their Shaftesbury brand (a nod to Shaftesbury Avenue - the location of so many important London guitar shops), Rosetti created Eros: yes, the Greek god of love and sex; but probably of more relevance the famous London statue in Piccadilly Circus just at the end of Shaftesbury Avenue. But in some soundhole labels, the name is written E-ROS - with the Ros no doubt a reference to Rosetti? Eros electric guitars were initially made by the well-regarded Matsumoku factory in Japan (until Epiphone launched their own line of Matsumoku instruments), with acoustics made by Eko in Italy.
In the late 1970s Hunka sold the business to EMI, and in mid 1981, they became, albeit briefly, the UK distributors of Gibson guitars, producing a number of catalogues (see the 1981 Gibson catalogue, right), and promoting the brand widely at trade shows - this relationship, however, ended when Norlin sold Gibson in January 1986.
In 1985 Rosetti sold to it's present owners, employees Doug Ellis and Barry Warner. Today it still distributes a number of top brands including Hagstrom.
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