Re: Plastic reedplates

["Ken Wolman" <kwolman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pat Missin wrote:

> There were some legal battles between Finn Magnus and the Harmonic
> Reed Co, the former accusing the latter of stealing some of his
> designs. I think they eventually made up and both Magnus and HRC wound
> up with some of their products being made by Proll Toys, who are still
> in business today, I believe.

Okay, mystery maybe solved.  At some point (I would guess sometime after 
July 1967) Proll Toys abandoned Newark, NJ for Bloomfield, a few towns 
over.  I just saw it listed as a Superfund site, which means it had 
relocated from a riot zone to a pile of toxic waste, heavy metals (no 
music involved), and God knows what else.  I lived three and a half 
years in the area (Lyndhurst) and know for a fact that they poured 
chromium into the sidewalk cracks to keep grass from growing.  I would 
not be surprised if Proll's Superfund designation, plus the 
sophistication of toys in the generation that followed, didn't finish 
the company off.

Their toys have achieved Collectable status.  One site, 
http://vintage-toys.com, reveals some Proll stuff up for sale, all of it 
apparently musical.  There's an accordion and a saxophone, both plastic. 
  eBay may have even more things out there.  The instruments probably 
are far more expensive now than they were in 1950-something because 
they're collectables and mostly "cute."  One of the sites on Geocities 
has something called a Looney Tunes Keymonica that the site owner 
locates in the early 1970s: I think you blow into the end and press 
buttons to change pitches.  I don't think it's for sale; it's part of a 
private collection.  I didn't see any other harmonicas listed but that 
doesn't mean they're not there.

I don't think I'd trade a Suzuki Chromatix for any of this stuff:-).

Ken
- -- 
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538