Premier was the brand name of the Peter Sorkin Music Company. Premier-branded solid body guitars were built at the Multivox company of New York, and distribution of those and the later Japanese built Premiers was handled by the Sorkin company of New York City, New York. Other guitars built and distributed (possibly as rebrands) were Royce, Strad-o-lin, Belltone, and Marvel.
Premier solid body guitars featured a double offset cutaway body, and the upper bout had a "carved scroll" design, bolt-on necks, a bound rosewood fingerboard, three-per-side headstocks (initially; later models featured six-on-a-side), and single coil pickups. Later models of the mid- to late 1960s featured wood bodies covered in sparkly plastic.
Towards the end of the U.S. production in the mid-1960s, the Custom line of guitars featured numerous body/neck/electronics/hardware parts from overseas manufacturers like Italy and Japan. The guitars were then assembled in the U.S, and available through the early 1970s.
Some models, like the acoustic line, were completely made in Japan during the early 1970s. Some Japanese-built versions of popular American designs were introduced in 1974, but were discontinued two years later. By the mid-1970s, both the Sorkin company and Premier guitars had ceased. Multivox continued importing and distributing Hofner instruments as well as Multivox amplifiers through the early 1980s. Entertainment Music Marketing Corporation began importing the Premier line again during the 1990s, but is unknown who the distributor is today. Current Premier models are built in Korea, and feature a slimmed (or sleek) strat-style guitar body and P-style bass body. New list prices range around $200-$300. Source: Michael Wright, Guitar Stories, Volume One.
Instruments currently produced in Korea, since the early 1990s. Instruments previously produced in New York from the 1930s-mid-1970s. Later models were manufactured in Japan. Previously distributed in the U.S. market during the 1990s by Entertainment Music Marketing Corporation (EMMC) in Deer Park, NY.
