ANDY PANAYIDES: My name is Andy Panayides, and I work for Century Strings. We're located in Chino, California. We produce violin family instruments as well as some fretted instrument, all out of the same workshop in Beijing starting with these classical instruments. We make violins, violas, and cellos ranging MSRP between $300 all the way up to about $4,000 in the violin world, some cellos and basses up to $4,000 to $8,000. They're all fully carved instruments, handmade in a workshop of about 15 people.

Five of those people are devoted to the fretted instruments as well. Also made of violin tonewoods. This is a gypsy-style archtop guitar which is sort of a hybrid idea based on an old Maccaferri guitar but with the archtop and a shorter scale to make them easier to play. We just have the two models of guitars and also a mandolin that we make, also again with violin tonewoods, this being an interesting shape that people are not used to seeing in a mandolin. Usually it's a traditional f-style or oval shape but something different.

We also make some bows and cases to go along with our instruments, not too many accessories. Mostly the carved instruments are our specialty.

[GUITARIST PERFOMING ON A CENTURY STRINGS GYPSY-STYLE ARCHTOP GUITAR]