Collection: CTS | Guitar Parts Available at ToneShapers

Founded in 1896, only 20 years after Alexander Graham Bell's famous call to Mr. Watson, Chicago Telephone Supply was established to manufacture telephones. The industry was absolutely booming, and within 6 years the company had 250 employees. With subsequent expansion into manufacturing telephone switchboards, the company was a leader in the field until 1940, when it produced its last telephone.

Why did telephone production end? Because by the 1920s, the company was riding another huge wave, the same one that CRL and CDE and many others were riding: radio. The 1920s saw the company begin to move from the manufacture of finished products (telephones and switchboards) to the manufacture of components: carbon composition variable resistors (potentiometers).

CTS is now a global leader in the manufacture of a wide range of electronic components, and the music industry accounts for only a small percentage of its customer base. Still the preferred manufacturer of pots for electric guitars, this is the brand used by almost all high-end American guitar manufacturers, including Fender, Gibson, PRS, and many others.