[Harp-L] Seydel Chromatic DeLuxe a PREWAR design?

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Elizabeth pointed me to this chromatic on Ebay, it was a 12-hole Hugo Rauner. I'm not really a harmonica collector - I'm afraid I would cross the line into hoarding if I were - but I went after this one and paid more ($28.50) for it than I've paid for any Ebay harmonica that wasn't a prewar Seydel Bandmaster, even though it had a comb crack - which the seller assumed was merely cosmetic (it ain't). What got my interest up was that it bore markings of "Made in U.S.S.R. Occupied Germany," so it would have to date from around 1946 to 1949. This was made by a PRIVATE company in Soviet-occupied Germany, before the DDR really took control of the industry, and would almost neccesarily be a prewar design. It might as well be prewar Klingenthal.  
It has leather windsavers. The comb is beech. How often do you see a chromatic with a beech comb? I'm a bit nervous about repairing the crack, pear is so soft and has give, beech is very hard by comparison. If all else fails, I've got an old pearwood Seydel chromatic DeLuxe comb that will fit it, believe it or not.
Now the interesting part. It is the exact same design as the Seydel Chromatic DeLuxe. That unique short spring on the side that the Seydel chromatic Deluxe has - it has it. It has the same mouthpiece. I haven't measured the reedslots yet, but the parts all seem to be interchangeable. The Chromatic DeLuxe has recently been updated with the acrylic comb and all... this Hugo Rauner is identical to the previous wood comb DeLuxe (which was pear, Klingenthal harmonicas are traditionally beech).
  
What happened to the Hugo Rauner company is unclear. We know that they left East Germany around 1950, then went out of business. I think this special harmonica - and its apparently being a direct ancestor of the chromatic Deluxe, offers a clue about what happened. Seydel has this design for a reason and it seems probable that they got during the years when the DDR was running the show and nationalizing companies left and right - and that Hugo Rauner was nationalized and at that point Hugo fled to West Germany to start another company, which flopped. But the notion that design came from Hugo Rauner would hinge on the fact that it was actually a Hugo Rauner design, which might not be the case. I know that the other Hugo Rauner 10-hole chromatics I have seen (the Borrah Minnevitch chromatics) have been basically copies of the Koch valveless chromatic. 

I'm always interested in figuring out these model histories, Seydel didn't start pushing in the U.S. until recent memory and they came up with these new models, Solist Pro, 1847,etc. at about the same time and the Session is a little older, but slightly. They still are the world's oldest company and they still have some historic designs, the Mountain Harp is one - the recently discontinued Solist was another. The Concerto is probably the best of the older designs I already knew about.  That the Chromatic DeLuxe is a prewar design that has survived is very interesting to me. I wonder, folks who have taken apart actual prewar Hugo Rauner TWELVE hole chromatics, if those chromatics also had the spring on the side like that - which is the most obvious part of this particular design and I would be interested to see if any other companies had this design.



David Payne
www.elkriverharmonicas.com


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