Re: [Harp-L] Archeological evidence (was Spotify)

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

@ Steve - I am very familiar with Martin's work. A great deal of what I know is based on work he has done. 

@ Manfred - Yes, around 1900 is the time it all started changing to where Hohner took a lion's share of the U.S. market. The change seems to happen after they started the New York office in 1901 and I would expect this to be the same in Canada - I know from watching the movie "Canadian Bacon" that Canada has amassed 90 percent of its population on the U.S. border, but other than that I don't know much about Canada as a harmonica market. This brilliant marketing and presence in North America is what got the ball rolling, but when you really break this all down to the common denominator - descendants.
The true secret to Hohner's success in he early 20th Century was that he had strong sons and nobody else did, although in C.A. Seydel's case, the sons were stronger than the father. Seydel was really dominant in Australia, but it was a similar situation to Hohner's in the U.S. - they had a guy on the ground. In Seydel's case, it was Mr. Albert. They should have established a U.S. office like Hohner and Koch did, but they didn't. They - and a lot of other companies - relied on distributors. In modern times, Seydel has been selling in the U.S. since pretty much the Berlin Wall fell, but nobody really ever heard of them here or started buying them until they opened Seydel USA. 


Back to the old days - Paul Hohner comes over to the U.S. in 1901  and runs the U.S. market like he's a rock star and Matthias' sons in Germany ran the company aggressively in Europe. On the other hand, Thie's grandson sold the Thie company so he could invest in Austro-Hungarian Empire bonds and live a life of relaxation - all of which went kaput with the empire in 1918 - and the new owners ran it into the ground. Weiss' descendants weren't as savvy as old man C.H. was and eventually sold out to Hohner. By 1900, Koch was the one company  that was in a position to give Hohner a run for its money - it established a U.S. office around the same time Hohner did, but Koch had the worst son of all - Ernst Koch, who ran that company in the ground. He'd get orders from Germany and not pay for them and the family wound up suing each other across the ocean and stuff. It was a mess and they ran that company into the ground in a variety of ways. If Ernst Koch had
 been an equal to Paul Hohner, harmonica history might have been very different. But he wasn't.   
With all these big companies - in the late 1800s and very early 1900s, you can find some thing and say "man, they really screwed up there." Except Hohner. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, I can think of business things that seem very cruel, but I can't think of any opportunity they missed, or any major marketing situation in which they failed.

On that Weiss sellout to Hohner, does anybody have a good idea when the prewar six-point star showed up on the Hohner trademark? As far as I know it was in the late 1920s, about the time Hohner bought out Weiss (Otto Weiss got a nice management job at Hohner, btw). Weiss was the company Matthias Hohner always looked up to, so it was a really big deal for Hohner when that happened. So what was Weiss' trademark? That very six-point star. I really think that's where the six-point star came from, but I certainly don't know for sure. 

David Payne
www.elkriverharmonicas.com


Elk River Harmonicas Forum now available via Iphone app, www.elkriverharmonicas.com/forum


________________________________
 From: MANFRED WEWERS <mwewers@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 5:28 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Archeological evidence (was Spotify)
 
Canada has 10% of the US harmonica market, with Toronto historically being a harmonica centre. From 1900 on, Hohner dominated in the area of newspaper ads from department stores and music stores selling harmonicas in Toronto.  I don't see why this would not have been the same in the US albeit on an even larger marketing scale?  The large numbers of harmonicas produced in Germany by then would certainly require such a large overseas market.
 
Earlier Toronto newspaper ads (1897 and earlier) from music stores list harmonicas for sale, but not specific brands.
 
Manfred from Toronto the Good