Elixir Strings were established in the USA in 1997. Prior to this, the people involved had still been working with guitar strings coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (that’s a plastic coating to you and me), but for engineering purposes rather than on string instruments. However, it was enough to spark the idea.
Elixir strings are now amongst the most popular brands for guitarists, and the company offer strings for acoustics, electric guitars, basses and even folk instruments such as mandolins and banjos.They also offer three different styles of coating on their strings - Nanoweb, Polyweb and Optiweb - which offer various levels of protection with differing tonal properties depending on what you want to get out of your strings and instrument.
