Mark Campellone built his first archtop guitar in 1988 (although he had been building solid body instruments since the mid 1970s). Campellone had been a professional guitarist in the 1970s and 1980s but by the early 1990s he was building archtop guitars full-time. The archtop guitars Mark builds today are among the world's finest. His work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History as part of the Blue Guitar Project and features in many guitar magazines and books.