In the time of Austro – Hungary Croatian Zagorje was densely populated and extremely poor, and the Empress Maria Theresa sent her emissaries to spy out the situation and the way to end poverty. They were mainly located in the aristocratic houses.
One of the emissaries was a builder of musical instruments. He was located in the villa of  Baron Hellenbach in Tugonica, a village next to Marija Bistrica. Intention of emissaries was to teach the poor peasants how to make musical wooden instruments because the area abounded with forests. The first students of his teaching were six brothers from family Skuliber in Tugonica. They made string instruments, tamburitza, pearl, etc. exclusively from maple.

After Skuliber family construction of instruments expanded to other rural families. First family was Lacković family.

By strengthening the industry enterprises appeared that started mass production of instruments, such as "Muzička naklada" from Zagreb. Their products were significantly cheaper due to higher volume series and as such pushed the instruments of local artists, and they eventually stopped producing.

However, tamburitza and pearl guitar became known product of this pilgrimage place and wise people from Zagorje began to produce them as a souvenir of Marija Bistrica bought  by many pilgrims and a toy for their children.

In 1934 the cooperative was founded "First Croatian Peasant cooperative" in Tugonica where about 30 households worked. Tamburitzas were mostly produced by the company "Domus" Zagreb, "Dom" Ljubljana, and they were marketed in other areas of the former Yugoslavia and the United States.

New boom in industrial production and especially in production of plastics reduced the demand for wooden toys, and therefore the number of producers and cooperatives ceased to operate.

But manufacturers have not give up so easily, and today there are six pepolewho work with great love, because this has been centuries long tradition of Tugonica and Marija Bistrica.