Dear parents, dear teachers,
The BOYER company, created by Mr Charles ENEL in 1909, is today the oldest in France.
After the death of Mr Enel in 1960, Frederic BOYER, who had been his assistant for more than 15 years took over the company, in the great tradition of the French string instrument trade.
In 1971 his son Serge BOYER begins his training in Mirecourt and takes over the company in 1984.
Florent BOYER, violin maker and son of Serge Boyer begins his violin maker training in 2003 in Mirecourt and continues his training with his father in 2006 and 2007. Today he is in New York for a 2 year perfecting training course. He is the one to have the idea of creating the Company LOCASTRAD.
Although this company is juridically independent of the Boyer company, it is however lodged and especially controlled by us for quality rigour and follow-up, that we have always imposed on our workshops.
Thanks to a trip to China in 2006, we found a violin making workshop manufacturing violins, violas and cellos by hand, with French measurements, and with purchase costs cheaper than in France. We have signed a contract with this company that regularly sends us instruments.
Those, before being presented to the customers, are re-examined in our workshops on the following points: pegs, fingerboard, bridge. The cords are systematically changed, the Chinese cords not being of sufficient quality.
It is with this requirement that we accept the LOCASTRAD company to be lodged by the BOYER company. If we manage today to present violins at 9 euros/month (the market being closer to 15 or 17 euros) and cellos at 20 euros/month (an average of 30 to 35 euros on the market), we however do not present poor instruments.
The prices obtained have only one goal, to allow an even larger number of people, to attains music and the joys it gives with the passing years.
Serge BOYER
Expert violin maker to the Court of Appeal of Paris
and assessor to the French customs
© Serge Boyer - 2007