MURPH

Designer/inventor Pat Murphy was responding to his children´s musical interests when he began manufacturing Murph guitars in the mid-1960s. Murphy put the family-run shop together with equipment picked up at auctions, and contracted a violin maker named Rick Geiger to help with production. After a falling out with Geiger, Murphy began manufacturing guitars in the midsummer of 1965.
The company originally was to be called York, but a brass instrument manufacturer of the same name caused them to use the Murph trademark. Pat Murphy estimated that perhaps 1,200 to 1,500 guitars were built in the one year production span. Models were built in lots of 50, and a total of nearly 100 guitars were built a week. Bridges and tremolos were from the Gotz company in Germany, and the tuning machines were Klusons. Pickups were hand wound in the guitar production facility. Pat Murphy was also contracted to make a small number of guitars for Sears under the Silvertone label (source: Teisco Del Rey, Guitar Player magazine).