The Mapes Piano String Company

Elizabethton, TN United States

 

Company Description

Piano tuners can't keep their hands off The Mapes Piano String Company. Founded in 1912, the company was the first American piano wire company and the first to patent the manufacturing process for piano wire. Over the years its Mapes Gold Standard has become the gold standard in piano strings. The company's piano wire continues to be used in Steinway pianos. Mapes' guitar string wire is sold to such companies as D'Addario, Fender, Peavey, and C. F. Martin & Co. for guitars, banjos, and mandolins. The company also makes specialty wires used for mechanical springs and for the automotive and defense industries. Mapes is owned by the Schaff family, cousins of the Johnsons, who run rival Schaff Piano Supply.