Armadillo Enterprises

Armadillo Enterprises
Armadillo Enterprises of Tampa, Florida, USA was founded in 1994 and is owned by Elliott Dean Rubinson

Armadillo Enterprises owns the brand names Luna Guitars, DDrums and Dean Guitars, (which they purchased as a trade name in 1997).

Luna Guitars
The Luna branding was started by Yvonne de Villiers in 2005, primarily for female musicians.

Luna have a range of acoustic and electric Guitars, some Mandolins and a fairly full range of Ukuleles in Soprano to Baritone scale lengths, plus a couple of Banjoleles, some Uke Bass models and a Resonator Ukulele. They are all decorated in some way, either laser etching, inlay or printed tops, and have a very distinctive look. This is due to Yvonne de Villiers and an all female design team.

There is also a sub brand, Aurora by Luna . This is a range of colourful printed top Soprano Ukuleles aimed at children, (and adults who like this sort of thing), including some with fairytale pictures by Mary Ann DiNella launched in 2013.

Dean Guitars
Dean Guitars was founded by Dean Zelinsky in 1976 and is most famous for its electric Guitars.

Under Armadillo Enterprises it still mainly brands electric and acoustic Guitars, but in 2013, Soprano, Concert and Tenor Ukuleles were added to the catalogue. These were much plainer and more traditional looking than the Ukuleles of the sister company Luna.

In 2014 they introduced a Concert model in a natural or black finish based on their ML Series electric Guitars with a radically different body shape.

In 2016 they put out some printed top Concert Ukuleles featuring graphic designs they describe as "Inspired by the likes of pop surrealism and lowbrow culture", and look a bit like cartoon monsters.

by the 2021 Dean Guitars catalogue, all of the Ukuleles had gone apart from the Black ML Series Concert.