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Hallmark Guitars

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ5643026
Source-derived summary

Hallmark Guitars is an American guitar manufacturer. The company was founded in 1966 by Joe Hall, formerly of Mosrite.

First incarnation, 1966-68

During its first short-lived existence, the company produced a series of guitars called the "Swept Wing," a rather "bizarre instrument," its only model. It first appeared as a semisolid-body guitar; later a solid-body model and a 12-string version were made, even a double neck. The company declared bankruptcy in 1968.

Return of Hallmark

Hallmark Guitars was restarted by Bob Shade, a guitar builder and enthusiast from Maryland, who acquired the rights to the name from Joe Hall in the late 1990s. On an individual basis, he builds Hallmarks out of his shop in Maryland; mass-produced Hallmark SweptWings are also available.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hallmark Guitars” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1966, 1968—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1966-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Hallmark, Guitars and Open-knowledge can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5643026. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966 and 1968.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Hallmark Guitars primary sources, Hallmark Guitars archive and Hallmark research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Hallmark Guitars” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.