[Harp-L] Re: [Harp L] Harmonica patents

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote Isabella Krapf in Vienna, she's a bit busy at the moment, but she did offer some stuff on the Chromatic development:
"If you want to start with history of the chromatic you have to start with the Chromatic harmonica that Wilhelm Thie built in Vienna in 1850 - Thie had the first harmonica company in the world (  founded  in 1834) Anton  Kratky Baschik was the first harmonica virtuoso in the world who also did a lot of work for thge harmonica in the 1850s ."
I checked out Isabella's Web site, it's very good. Lots of good historical info in the archives page, which is here:
http://www.chromaticharmonica.net/Arce.html


Dave 
_________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas 
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 


----- Original Message ----
From: Tim Moyer <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 4:04:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] harmonica patents

David Payne wrote:
> Thought I'd pass on some interesting patents I've come across for 
> this harmonica development Web page I'm working on. 
<snip>
> This is an interesting Matthias Hohner patent filed after his 
> death. It's a way to cope with comb swelling. The idea was to put 
> a metal strip on the comb teeth, which would keep the wood from 
> swelling, or at least keep it from swelling upwards. Too bad they 
> didn't have access to sealers back then. Such as wax... ;) 
> Seriously, it's interesting to look at these patents and see how 
> they were constantly thinking about how to deal with problems such 
> as comb swell. 
> http://www.google.com/patents?
id=3dhnAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=%22matthias+hohner%22

This would be the design for the Orchester!  

> Hohner's patent for metal mouthpiece, 1893
> http://www.google.com/patents?
id=d3dDAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=%22matthias+hohner%
22#PPP2,M1

This looks like a precursor to the CX-12 design, although this 
abstract recommends fashioning it from metal.  I don't think plastic 
fabrication was available in 1893!

Interesting...

-tim