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When the D’Addario family first began making strings, more than 300 years ago, the United States
wasn’t even a dream. It would be almost a century before the United States gained its independence,
and another 130 years before Charles D’Addario brought the family business to America’s shores.
When Charles came to America in 1905, he first set up shop in Queens, New York and began to import
strings from his family’s town of Salle, Italy. The strings were a success, and Charles managed to build his
business and his family. In 1917, as war enveloped Europe, Charles decided to make his strings in New
York.
Sales of his strings were strong, and as Charles earned his living making violin and other orchestral
strings, his son John was growing up learning the family trade. John soon inherited the family’s string
business (then called C. D’Addario & Son) and took the Company into a market about to explode: guitar
and other fretted instruments. Rock and Roll was suddenly the top act in the world, and guitars and
basses became the standard equipment for that act. The Company blossomed as John started his own
family. Two of John’s sons became just as impassioned about the business and the music, and followed
their father as he created Darco Strings.
Darco was popular, and major guitar manufacturers used Darco strings, but the family never had their
own name attached to the strings that had been so popular for so long. In 1973, John Sr., John Jr., and
Jim D’Addario started their own company: J. D’Addario & Company, Inc., which has, decades later,
become the largest manufacturer of musical strings in the world. In 1980, J. D’Addario acquired Kaplan
Musical Instrument strings and took their skills back into to the orchestral instrument market their
grandfather had begun.
J. D’Addario grew quite rapidly, growing into a new manufacturing building in 1981 and an even larger
facility in Farmingdale, New York in 1995. The Company, now known as D’Addario & Company, has since
taken on a number of other facilities both domestically and internationally to accommodate the growing
business, which includes Evans Drumheads, Planet Waves Music Accessories, with D’Addario
Woodwinds, and Promark drum sticks. Each of these brands burst into popularity when D’Addario took
its expertise to them, and the Company is now one of the largest musical instrument accessories
manufacturers in the world. Ninety‐seven percent of D’Addario’s products are made in the USA and the
Company sells products globally through a network of distributors and retailers in approximately 120
countries.
Both the front office and the main factories of the Farmingdale building had to be expanded several
times each to accommodate the huge influx of new employees. In addition to its manufacturing and
warehouse facilities in Farmingdale, the Company operates a reed manufacturing facility in California, a
drum stick manufacturing operation in Texas and its own distribution company in Toronto, Canada; with
satellite offices in France, China, Australia, and the UK. Furthermore, D’Addario maintains a wood mill in
Tennessee, and reed‐cane plantations in France and Argentina.
At D’Addario, innovation, quality, tradition, and unparalleled customer service converge into one
package to become The First Choice worldwide in music accessories and cable solutions.
For more information, please visit the Company’s web site at www.daddario.com.