Valco

Valco was an American manufacturer of guitars, guitar amplifiers, and other musical instruments from the 1940s through 1968.

History

In the 1930s, Valco was formed by three business partners and former owners of the National Dobro Company; Victor Smith, Al Frost, and Louis Dopyera. The company name was a combination of the three partner's first initials (V.A.L.) plus the common abbreviation for company (Co.)

Valco manufactured Spanish acoustic guitars, metal-bodied resonator guitars, electric lap steel guitars, and vacuum tube amplifiers under a variety of brand names including Supro, Airline, Oahu, and National. They also made amplifiers under contract for several other companies such as Gretsch, Harmony, and Kay. In the 1960s they began producing solid body electric guitars.

Valco merged with Kay Musical Instrument Company in 1967, however the merged company quickly went out of business in 1968 because of financial difficulties.

Replicas and revivals

Since Valco's demise, a number of manufacturers have reissued several different reissues or derivatives of Valco instrument and amplifier models. Eastwood Guitars currently produces a variety of reissue Airline guitars, as well as at least one Supro model. Several of Valco's earlier amplifier models are currently reissued by Vintage47 Amps of Mesquite, Nevada. These amps are somewhat unique in modern times because they implement octal preamp tubes, whereas later amplifiers leading right up to present times use miniature noval preamp tubes.

Volta Aluminum Company

Volta Aluminum Company, known as Valco, is an aluminium company based in Ghana founded by Kaiser Aluminum and now wholly owned by the government of Ghana. Valco is a joint venture with Alcoa, the major aluminum conglomerate based in the United States. In 1961 Valco invested in the Akosombo Hydroelectric Project project to provide energy for its aluminum smelters. The company had negotiated favorable terms for power purchase with the government. The agreement was re-negotiated in 1985, as part of the program of the Rawlings government, to reflect the increased value of electrical energy.

Operations

Valco smelts alumina to produce aluminium ingots at its smelter at Tema. Locally, a major Ghanaian customer of Valco is Aluworks. While one motivation for establishing the plant was the local availability of alumina, mostly it was imported from Jamaica.

In May 2003 Valco closed completely due to problems in negotiating a supply of electricity. In 2004 the government purchased most of the company. It reopened in early 2006.