Re: [Harp-L] Weltmeister harmonicas

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

They were about the best the iron curtain had to offer. They were made by Seydel, but the Seydel factory wasn't called Seydel then, it was "German Harmonica Works," and a couple other things during the Iron Curtain period. I think the idea was one or two government-controlled harmonica makers per country, but a lot of the Weltmeisters were very good given the East German government overlords' "bottom line, bottom line, Karl Marx says what mine is mine what's yours is mine" policy. Many of the Weltmeister diatonics were excellent. There was a period when they had some freakish brass that was nearly indestructable, lasted for years and years.
. The company known as Seydel also operated under the name Vermona during the period, but not simultaneously,  Named changed at least twice, I think.
So while this is going on, you have this weird dynamic of stifled genius, especially with Karl Pucholt. It was during these days in the Cold War the embryo of the steel reed Seydel 1847 took shape in his head, but of course the communist party overlords had no interest in it. If say the Soviets wanted to by harps for resale, they wouldn't order 1,000 harmonicas, they would order 1,000 KILOS of harmonicas. So when Niama Media bought Seydel in 2004, Seydel said "by the way, we have this steel reed harmonica we've been developing for like 30 years." 
But during the Weltmeister days, it was a freakishly weird dynamic, communist overlords running the place, yet you had all these extremely talented people and this legacy of Seydel's prewar excellence. I've never seen anything like this from Seydel, but some of the other Soviet Bloc makers, I've seen literal bait-and-switch. I've got a Radio harp from Czechoslavakia during that time, that appears to be a tremolo, you'd think it was when you bought it, it has like 48 holes, but ONLY EIGHT REEDS!
Weird dynamic with the Seydel factory. 
After German reunification in 1991, the company was given back to the Seydel family, I believe, whoever got it, it was privatized, but after 45 years of communist overlordship, it was a money pit. I  think the Weltmeister faded away in the 1990s and became what we'd know as Seydel today, at least that's how it appears from my research. 
Dave
_________________________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 
----- Original Message ----
From: David Brown <nonidesign@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Philharpn@xxxxxxx" <Philharpn@xxxxxxx>
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 6:24:42 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Weltmeister harmonicas

I have a friend with several old Weltmeister harmonicas (both chromatic and
diatonic) that were made in "GDR" (German Democrat Republic) so they must be
post WW2.
Does anyone have any info or opinions on them? Yes, I already went to their
website.
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l