Re: [Harp-L] Mexican Revolution, now U.S. Civl war harps

[<venkyr@xxxxxxx>]

History is quite interesting- so here is something I wanted to contribute.

SOURCE - MADE IN GERMANY- PLAYED IN USA- a must have book written by Martin Haffner & Christoph Wagner. I bought this book for $5.00 from www.harpdepot.com.

It says, in 1833, Christian Messner, a pioneer mouth organ builder from Trossingen, had started exporting his novel mouth harps. First country to import- Switzerland (in Baden). Matthias Hohner, I think, did much better at selling harps than the watches he was peddling. Hohner's cousin Hans in Canada helped him to get 6 CAN dollars for 6 harps- which were still great quality back then.

Eventually, Uncle Sam's visit to Trossingen in 1865 changed everything for Hohner when Jonathan Benari from New York placed an order for 500 harmonicas. Oversees export seems to have commenced shortly thereafter.

Harmonica Output Statbites (Last updated 1912)

Hohner's Track of mass harp production
1857- 700 harmonicas
1867- 22,000 "
1877- 90,000 "
1887- 1,000,000 "
1897- 3,000,000 "
1907- 6,500,000 "
1911- 8,000,000 "

Venky