The Furch Guitars story began a long time before the company was officially established. In the 1970s, Frantisek Furch, a metalworker by day and a musician by night, faced the dilemma of complete unavailability of high-quality musical instruments in the then socialist Czechoslovakia. Because importing an instrument from overseas was too complicated and excessively costly, he resorted to his metalworking skills and used an old drum to make his first banjo. A few years later, Frantisek also made his first acoustic guitar, in the roundback style, with a spruce top plate from an old piano. The response of other musicians to his first guitar was very favorable, and prompted a high number of Frantisek’s friends to commission a guitar from him. Initially, Frantisek made several prototypes of roundback guitars, a type that was very popular and in high demand at that time, generating even more interest in his instruments.