The Goodfellow brand was sold to the Shinseido Corp. of Japan in 1996 to allow the company to focus exclusively on making high quality handmade acoustic guitars using traditional methodology.

The workshops in Newtownards were purpose built to facilitate the traditional approach to luthiery adopted by Avalon (then Lowden Guitar Co.); the facility was laid out in the pattern of specialised Japanese guitar makers by the then Technical Manager Mitsuhiro Uchida - now one of Japan's foremost luthiers.

The newly formed Avalon Guitar Company was the feature of a photography essay by David Cleland in 2013 with the images being used by a number of publications.

In response to the mass market development in guitar manufacturing made possible by advances in wood working technologies such as CNC, laser cutting and UV lacquer curing, the company designed and introduced a mass market version, named the Avalon Silver series and built in Korea.

The Avalon Guitars product range comprises the following series: Avalon Guitars are played by several globally recognised artists including Jan Akkerman, Def Leppard, Bob Geldof, Nik Kershaw, James Morrison, Tom Baxter, Sinéad O'Connor, Bruce Springsteen, Terry Lewis, Van Morrison, Andy McKee, David Gray, The Corrs, Katie Melua, The Band Perry, Chris Tomlin, Michael Hedges, Albert Lee, Bob Weir, and Ben Kyle.