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is rare, and part of a batch of 75 made with the Hagstrom logo
In 1959 Hagström made a distribution deal with the US importer Hershman, who sold these guitars under the Goya brand name. Hershman already owned that name and did not wish to introduce a new brand name. The Goya name was also used on acoustic guitars made by Sweden’s Levin Guitar Company (Julie Andrews plays one in Sound of Music).
The pickups to these guitars came in dismountable chassis, so that you could sell the guitars as ”acoustic” and the pickups as electronics components, thus lowering the customs charges.
Now, this was actually not the first Hagström attempt to make electric guitars. The Falun factory made perhaps 20 electric lap steel guitars sometime between 1948 and 1952. The Falun factory also made a handful of lutes. And Hagström ran a guitar factory in Norway between 1947 and the early 1960s. It built mostly acoustic guitars and some mandolins, but also economy-class archtop guitars with German made pickup assemblies. The Norwegian factory was set up due to the fact that exporting to Norway after the war was too cumbersome. However, it seems that neither the lap steel nor the Norwegian guitars had any influence on the production in the Älvdalen factory.
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