Antique autoharp value update#
Antique autoharp value manual#

They originally came with booklets with songs, and a few fingerpicks (which do not look comfortable at all).

Antique autoharp value manual#

They are all quite large for an autoharp, mainly because they were meant to be played atop a table, not held against one's upper body country-style.Р”Р„ drawing from the user manual to the Orpheus-model. His factory was located in Dresden and he produced a few types of autoharp, all equally beautiful. MР“Сller produced the first autoharps from 1870s onwards, although he called it an 'akkordzither' (which is actually a way better name). (Hey, don't make fun of me, I was really shocked about that) He patented the autoharp, but he did not invent it. WHAAAT, I can hear you say! I know right. Well, turns out that Zimmerman did not invent the autoharp. how can it be that I have a German autoharp from around 1900s in my hands? (I actually said that out loud when I realized it was German-built, don't judge me) And these manufacturers all date from after the American country period, when the love for country music spread to Europe. But autoharps are largely unknown in Europe, it is a niche where not many people are aware of. Nowadays, there is a very small number of brands that also produce autoharps in Europe (like my first autoharp by Hudson, which is actually a brand for guitars). Oscar Schmidt took over when Zimmerman died and is still the most well-known autoharp manufacturer. He took the European zither and turned it into an autoharp. The inventor and first American manufacturer of autoharps was called Zimmerman (Philadelphia, 1880). The autoharp is a very genre-bound instrument: you will almost always find it in American country music. So what I will tell you next, I get directly from his log, but also from theseР’В German websites ( 1, 2) which were very helpful. The log was very useful for my plans, but also for my research on MР“Сller. He e-mailed me back with this gold mine of information: his repair log! Not only did he describe exactly which steps he undertook to get it working again, but he speaks about MР“Сller in his introduction. There was little information about how the project was going and whether or not he finished it, so I e-mailed him about it. I found a blog, written by an American autoharp luthier who had restored exactly the same model: a MР“Сller Erato autoharp. Well, if there's something that makes my heart beat faster, it is a good ol' mystery! So I started to search in more detail, for any information about the factory I could find. 'MР“Сller' is of course a very generic German name, but even when I added search words like 'autoharp' or 'chorded zither' or the German term 'akkordzither', only some pieces for auction came up, no information about the company or the history of it, whatsoever. However, to my surprise, when I googled it, I found out that not very many people had. So, it's not so surprisinig that I had never heard of MР“Сller.

Well, maybe that's not completely fair because I only knew two autoharp manufacturers: Oscar Schmidt, because it's super well-known, and Hudson, which is the manufacturer of my first autoharp.

I had never heard of it before I bought my autoharp. Therefore, I thought I'd write something on MР“Сller autoharps, because I find the history of musical instruments just as fascinating as an autoharp pin (so.

Antique autoharp value update#

No update on my autoharp this time, because things have been quite hectic lately.