About Us
1998
About Antiquus Strings
Frank Smith, proprietor of Antiquus Sheep Gut Music Strings, describes how a small back street gut processing concern came to be; established, developed, diversified, and grew into a very successful sausage casings and gut strings business in the North of England.
A change of direction on reaching retirement age led him down the path of; Music string research, experimentation, testing and user trials and finally perfecting the art of gut string production resulting in the string music worlds acceptance of the Antiquus Sheep Gut Music Strings range of products.
Frank's Story
In the late 1800s, my grandfather established a small casings business working with sheep gut to produce sausage casings, i.e., sausage skins. My father followed him into the business on leaving school in 1915.
Their main customers at that time were butchers who needed casings for the sausages they made on their premises. Over time the company also built up strong relationships with gut string and suture producers. The company provided them with the gut required to make tennis & badminton racket strings, musical instrument strings and sutures. The suture manufacturers would take all the gut that the company could supply to produce sutures for internal surgical stitches.
2022
We were quick to learn!
As young boys, Bill (my elder brother) and I used to play around the small factory. In addition to playing, we were, unconsciously, learning what went on in the factory.
We enjoyed going out in the van with our father to retrieve the gut from the slaughterhouses and to deliver casings to the butchers. As we grew older and stronger, we were taught how to “pull off”; that is, to draw the small intestine from the mesenteric fat and to remove the stomach content. We were quick to learn. At weekends and during the school holidays we could always earn pocket money helping out in the factory.
The company began to grow
After our studies, both Bill and I went to work in the factory and were made directors of the company when we were in our twenties. The company grew, we took on more staff and, as a result were able to service more and more slaughterhouses. The extra gut available to us enabled the company to increase its customer base. Approximately 15% of our production was going into strings and suture manufacturing.
Eventually, Bill and I took over the company and ran a very successful business for many years
A lifetime of knowledge and experience
When we were nearing retirement age, I began researching the music strings industry. I already had many years of experience working with gut and supplying string makers. I knew their requirements and I had gained some knowledge of the many techniques they employed.
I was advised that; what the music string market needed were flexible strings and, that this flexibility is created by structuring the strands of the string. To do this one has to; twist a pair of single strands together, twist two of the resulting strings together and so on and so on until the required size is achieved.
As my aim is to recreate traditional musical gut strings as used in former times, I decided to name the product “Antiquus”.
NIcholas Baldock
My good friend Nicholas Baldock, (an Englishman who lived in Germany and traded under the name of Baldock Strings), gave me a lot of advice and support in the early development of Antiquus Strings.
Nicholas was a bassist and a string technician. He would test the strings that I had produced and would advise me on any changes required until we were confident that the product was ready for the market. Nicholas eventually became my customer and we enjoyed working together for over twenty years. We specialised in Double Bass strings. Sadly, Nicholas passed away passed away in 2020. I miss him dearly and I will always be grateful for his help and guidance.
Antiquus strings are exclusively made from sheep gut using traditional, long tried and tested authentic techniques. Each string is individually structured, highly twisted, and skilfully hand polished to create extremely flexible strings.