Today we focus on string instruments and relating components and accessories. Our customers are violin makers and music shops in Germany as well as abroad.
Because of our long tradition and experience we know the right answer to all your questions concerning string instruments & co.
The foundation of the company was laid in 1908 by Josef Sandner (1875-1951) as he bought the old "pond mill", a sawmill in Schönbach/ Bohemia, (today: "Luby u Chebu" in the Czech Republic).
During the following years he focused on processing and selling of tone woods. Tone woods are special types of wood which are used for building musical instruments. Like previous tone wood merchants from "Schönbach" he also obtained the wood in the Bohemian Forest, the Alps, the Carpathians or Bosnia. Due to the abundance of wood in these areas the following years brought a good order situation resulting in the extension of the company, which had nearly 20 employees at this time. The company even owned a subsidiary in the French violin manufacture centre Mirecourt and could on this way improve its contacts to French as well as international manufacturers.
Besides the trading of tone woods the company now begun also to produce and sell musical instruments and their components.
One of Josef Sandner’s three children, his son Alois (1909-1984), had completed an apprenticeship in his fathers sawmill and thus stepped into his footprints in the musical instrument industry. During the expulsion of Germans from Bohemia at the end of the 2nd World War the family was forced to pack the most necessary things within a few hours and leave their hometown Schönbach.
They came together with other instrument manufactures in refugee transports from Schönbach to Bavaria’s administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt.
At first, Alois Sandner and his family lived in Kalchreuth. Here he had a warehouse for trading musical instruments and produced guitars with the help of home workers. The business traded under the name of "Alois Sandner".
In 1953 the family moved to Bubenreuth, where many other dispelled Bohemian musical instrument manufacturers were resident. In the newly built home were besides the living quarters also workshops in which the instruments, mainly guitars, were manufactured. A cooperation with national artists, like René Carol or Vico Torriani, promoted the sales of the guitars and provided a broad publicity.
The workshop was closed in 1958 and Alois Sandner concentrated on the trade with musical instruments, which he enlarged within the following years. In 1975, his son Helmut Sandner joined the company and continued the business after the death of Alois Sandner in 1984.
Since 2010 his daughter Bettina Sandner has taken over the management of the company as the fourth family generation. Today the business traded under the name of "Alois Sandner e.K.".
With the new company building finished in 2015 the room capacity could be enlarged. Our family is very proud to continue the business in this traditionally place of location of Bubenreuth city.