[Harp-L] Civil War Harmonicas

[Winslow Yerxa]

We have evidence of harmonicas of unknown make on preserved commercial invoices of the 1840s. 
We also have newspaper advertisements that include harmonicas among many toys and notions offered by retailers as early as the 1830s. 
What we don't have is any real evidence of what kind of harmonicas they were. I've seen photos of stuff dug up at civil war sites by amateurs with metal detectors that include reedplates (pretty much never with reeds) that look like modern 10-hole harmonica reedplates, and others that look like the early type of harmonica that played three four-note chords, where the slots are in three long-to-short sequences. You can see such a harmonica at
Given the amateur nature of the work and the assumptions about dating, it's impossible to know which, if any, of these harmonica remnants date from before, during, or long after the civil war period.

Winslow Yerxa

    On Friday, October 6, 2023, 06:04:51 AM PDT, Richard Sleigh <rrsleigh at xxxxx> wrote:  
 
 Does anyone know what kind of harmonicas were around during the American
Civil War?

I contacted Rick Epping and he replied:

"Regarding Civil War harmonicas, I recall hearing that Hohner wasn’t yet
selling in North America at that time, only having established the company
in 1857. But I really don’t know. You might try contacting Martin Häffner
at the Deutsches Harmonikamuseum.

I remember a drawing in one of the Oz books I read as a kid, of a Munchkin
playing a harmonica, and me wondering why it had no cover plates. The book
would have been written in the first decades of the 20th Century when
harmonicas all had cover plates, but John R. Neill, the illustrator, was
surely remembering how they looked when he was young."

I am in the process of contacting the Deutsches Harmonikamuseum, but in the
mean time, if anyone has information of=n this subject, I am all ears and
eyes...

Thanks!

Richard Sleigh





-- 
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rrsleigh at xxxxx
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