[Harp-L] Re: Re. Archeological evidence (was Spotify)

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Steve, 
If you wouldn't mind sending me Martin's e-mail address, I would love to send those pics over to him I believe he does read English. There is a guy I know in Virginia that does a lot of metal detecting - on private property, with permission, of course, and he digs up a lot of harmonicas, plus I think he sends pics of a lot of his buddies' stuff as well. 
What happened was, intitially he was wondering if they were Civil War harmonicas, which of course they weren't. Over time, I noticed this pattern developing - they were mostly from Saxony and I was a bit surprised by that. I have no idea what names a lot of these harmonicas had - or if they were no-name or whatever - because mostly the coverplates had decomposed - although there were a few Seydels and A. Richters with coverplates - and one that had A. Richter one one side and Seydel on the other. I would really like to show Martin that pic especially. 
In the 1890s - and what follows is more for the average reader's benefit - both Jacob Hohner and Richard Seydel Sr. were developing a revolution in tone by varying air flow with the Marine Band and the Bandmaster. Hohner did a much better job of marketing in the U.S. Hohner really took off in the U.S. in the first decade of the 1900s. You look at catalogs from early in the decade and you see a limited selection of Hohners, the big guns are C.H. Weiss and Thie. By the end of the decade, the catalogs are 90 percent Hohner. What happened in the meantime - Hohner established Hohner USA in 1901 and their marketing was brilliant and revolutionary. Koch also established a U.S. office, but would have been better off having coin-operated monkeys running it because they ran the company into the ground.
The mystery to me is still why more Hohners aren't showing up in those dug harmonicas - even from harmonicas in the 1930s. They certainly do elsewhere. I'm still puzzled, which is why I don't say "I think this," but instead say what evidence I've seen "suggests" it - although the mail order catalogs have a pretty compelling story to tell.

Oh, yes, how do I know they aren't Hohners. It's pretty easy to tell from a pic if you know what you are looking for. Of course, ones that have coverplates are pretty obvious. If you just have a reedplate, you can tell by the reedslot dimensions - and its something you can tell just at a glance - these reeds are usually all the same width, pretty much the same reedslots Seydel uses today. Often, there's a little bit of wood that hasn't decomposed. If the decomposed wood looks all smooth = it's pearwood from Trossingen. If it looks splintery, it's beech and probably from the Saxony area. 
 
David Payne
www.elkriverharmonicas.com


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________________________________
 From: Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Harp-L <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 11:25 AM
Subject: Re. Archeological evidence (was Spotify)
 

Dave wrote:
Archeological harmonica evidence I've reviewed from Virginia would suggest in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries that most harps in the mid Atlantic South were supplied by Klingenthal makers and not Hohner

Steve responds:
I asked Harmonica Museum curator Martin Haeffner about this. He replied as follows (my translation):

"I would like to know more about the archeological evidence you mention. All US catalogues with which I'm familiar (mostly reprints) mention mainly Vienna or Trossingen manufacturers by name, and fewer from Kingenthal (though large quantities of "no name" instruments were also exported from there)."

It's generally accepted that Hohner's rise to dominance of the harmonica market was largely financed by the sales of Marine Band harmonicas in the years following the introduction of this model in 1896.

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.european-music-workshops.com
www.harmonica-masters.de