Vintage tuning pins

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Lucille Reilly
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Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Hi,

I hope this is the right place to ask the following’

I am working on dating when an old German(??) autoharp was built. It’s in a museum in Germany, but who knows? It could have been built in the United States. It’s a one-time deal, as far as we can see, with no label inside or name anywhere. No one knows anything about it, yet I have found a mysterious connection to another instrument.

This “autoharp” is NOT of the usual shape everyone recognizes, and it could pre-date commercial autoharp production by several years. (Yes, it’s pretty exciting!)

One of the identifying features could be its tuning pins, whose ends are slightly rectangular rather than square. I would like to know how or from whom to find out where such pins were made, where and when. I’m sure ther is more than one place, and that’s fine: whatever it takes to narrow the field.

Another is the wood: “spruce,” according to the museum it’s in, but there are several kinds! Assuming this instrument was built in Germany, the wood type could point to a region.

Finally, there is felt on the chord bars, as long as it’s the original stuff.

I do have other historical identifiers, thankfully, although I sense I may have to go deeper to these details. Any leads out there?

Thank you.
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Tom Owen
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Tom Owen »

Pictures?
Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Ummm, how do I attach one? I don't see any place to do it. Thank you.
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Barry Daniels
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Barry Daniels »

Click on the button below the text entry box that reads "Full Editor & Preview". Then select a photo file that is no larger than 150 KB and that is sized to somewhere around 600 by 900 pixels. Lastly, upload the file. If you don't have an app to resize the photo there are a lot of free ones available at your favorite app store.
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Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Image

Sorry this took so long. Other things on my plate. But I don't think I did this right. I found the image button above the message field, but upload? All I could do was paste in the image file title. Dragging the photo into the message area didn't work. I will post and see what happens, but if it doesn't work, then I need clearer instructions.

Well, I guess it worked! Anyway, in cropping the photo to fit size limits, it enlarged and got somewhat blurry. I won't say that what shows here is at exact size, but the pins sure look like they are for a piano, not a zither. But the point is: where were the pins made?
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Tom Owen
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Tom Owen »

I can't really comment on the pin origin from the photo. If I could see the instrument in a whole pic I might be able to help more. It is possible that they are harp (not autoharp) pins or hand made.
Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

I would say it is possible that the pins are handmade, although they do look consistent from one to the next. I was hoping the rectangular ends might indicate something. Does anyone know when tuning pins were made by machine or molds or however they are made?

The photos I have of the entire instrument are too large to attach here.
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Tom Owen
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Tom Owen »

If you are using a PC just down load a free program called Paint.net. You can easily resize photos with it. Autoharp pins now days are machined. If they were hand made, steel would have been drawn to diameter then hammered to make the square, or in your case rectangular, end to accommodate a tuning wrench. I think still the more important question is the origin of the instrument. And without pictures I can't help.
Alan Carruth
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Alan Carruth »

I don't think those are harp pins, which are tapered and basically work like violin friction pegs. Harp pins are made of metal, not wood, of course, and instead of heads have squared ends.

I have seen old piano pins that looked as though they were forged; the top is roughly rectangular in section, with the short sides rounded, as if they were hammered to shape. Most likely a drop hammer and jig was used to make them more or less uniform. Since they could not easily be made identical that way they tend to be tapered; so long as the taper is right and the small end is not too large the tuning hammer (what tuners call the wrench) will fit. Modern autoharp/piano pins are tapered, but square in section at the top.

It's a little hard to say for sure, but these look to have sides that are parallel along the length. This, and the lack of rounding on the corners, suggests that the wrench was made to be a tight fit, and that they're all pretty close in size. That would be easy to check out. A pin like that could be filed out by hand with a proper jig (I've done it), but it's not fun, or quick. Even a fairly early milling machine would make short work of it. I'm not exactly sure of when that technology came along; I suspect it was in the mid-19th century. There is a local museum that has one of the first Bridgeport milling machines, but I can't remember the date on it. It's the 'Precision Museum' in Windsor Vermont, and you may be able to get in touch with them.

You can see the shallow threads that were cut into the shafts of the tuning pins down near the wood. Harp pins, when not smooth, would be knurled, often with lengthwise marks. Piano/autoharp pins screw into a tight hole.

The strings look to be made to the proper length. You can see that the winding stops just short of the bridge, at least on the heavier ones. They could have been trimmed off, of course, but if they were not (and don't show cut marks on the winding to suit) that would suggest that this was not a one-off.

Come to think of it, the pitch of the instrument could be a clue as well. Up until the industrial revolution long lengths of uniform wire for strings were hard to make. Brass or bronze were more common than steel. Pianos didn't definitively displace harps until the mid-19th century, when good high-quality steel became more common. Brass and bronze strings tune lower at a given length than steel, so the pitch of the instrument and the string length will say something about the strings it was designed around, and the time period.

So, the little I can see suggests late 19th century, or early 20th. I'd guess it's a production instrument.
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Tom Owen
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Tom Owen »

Alan is right. I wasn't thinking when I suggested harp pins. Zither or piano pins have been around a lot longer then the autoharp. Just think of all the variants of what we call a hammered dulcimer, cimbalom etc.
Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Wow, that is quite the discussion! Thank you so much for your thoughts!

We need to remember that this instrument lives in a museum in Germany, so it may have been made there. I would be surprised if its tuning pins came from the USA. So I will check with the folks in Vermont, but don't know how much they will really be able to help.

Other details on this instrument point to a one-time build. The lack of any kind of commercial marking or name, even the hint of a long-gone label, is the most obvious. And a very clear soundboard "seam" can be seen in the photo I cropped. There's another one of the same length on the other side, and it looks like yet another running the full length of the soundboard under the chord bars. So the soundboard is comprised of 3-4 pieces whose "seams" are massively visible. On top of this, the soundboard grain runs 90 degrees to the "horizontal" direction we normally expect! So I sense some inexperience here. As far as I know, another instrument like this has not (yet) shown up in Germany.

The plot thickens......
Alan Carruth
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Alan Carruth »

The grain direction on small piano soundboards is often at an angle to the strings. Whoever made this instrument was probably coming in from the piano end of things, rather than guitar practice, so it would not be unusual.

Small zithers in various configurations were pretty common in Eastern Europe and and Scandinavian countries, and they used pins of that size and type. Most of the things of that ilk I see were factory made here in the US by and for immigrant communities. Given that the workmanship and design as often not the best there must have been a lot of them at one time, since so many have survived.

The museum in Vermont studies the development of precision manufacture, which was world-wide. They do, of course, concentrate on happenings in the Connecticut river valley, which was a hotbed of such work, drawing on a long tradition of gun smithing. Parallel paths were followed in Germany, France, and England, and there was a lot of cross fertilization. Workers, ideas, and parts crossed national boundaries fairly freely, in spite of the efforts of governments to stop it. They would probably have a good idea of when the 'state of the art' reached that level in Germany, assuming that's where the instrument originated.
Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Thank you for this, Alan. Glad I didn't contact Vermont yet. It takes an enormous amount of research to get to the bottom of things!
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Tom Owen
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Tom Owen »

Does you instrument look somewhat like this? If so it is probably American made, by Charles F. Zimmermann. If that is the case you still have a very rare autoharp, as Zimmermann patented the deign in 1882. It is not known if any exist.
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Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

No, it does not. The instrument pictured is only slightly similar, and while others view this and the German autoharp surrounding this thread as a match, to my eye the construction is vastly different

Just for the record, I have dissected US257,808 >significantly< enough to make anyone’s head spin! There was a LOT more going on between the patent’s file date on December 10, 1881 and when the first autoharps were marketed commercially (the earliest ad I’ve found was published on Nov. 12, 1885). And quite a lot went on before the patent was filed. Certain implications within the patent’s text are bigger and more encompassing than one might realize!

And yes, a couple years ago, I scoured all the Music Trade Review issues online, btw, along which much, much more. In fact, I was looking at my own, 53-page timeline where I keep track of CFZ’s work, just as notification of the above post came in. The most telling, printed piece I own is CFZ’s “first edition” (of three) of a pamphlet he wrote, titled “Simplified Harmony Teacher.” I have photocopies of the other two editions, but this first edition in my possession is the real deal. Its content is absolutely astounding compared to the other two. It has helped to zero in on the instrument surrounding this thread.

So I’ve been doing the homework—since 2016! However,, I welcome mention of more resources, just in case I haven’t seen something yet. US257,808 barely scratches the surface of one man’s large and colorful, yet often misrepresented, career.
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Tom Owen
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Tom Owen »

Well I am at a dead-end. I don't think the pins hand made or manufactured from where ever will help your identification of the instrument. Nor will the spruce help. Picea abies, so-called German spruce grows all over Europe very little of it (if any) comes today from Germany. Also Picea abies was commonly available in the US and even the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 1800's, Just as rosewood's, mahoganies, and ebonies were not grown in North America, well except persimmon which is an ebony sp.. Historically German started reforesting Picea abies in the early 1800's as a result of over cutting, today almost none of it is suitable for instrument making. You state that it is slightly similar, but not the same, as the patent drawing. Very often prototypes don't follow the patent drawing. Since it took a year for the approval of the patent, it could well be that he modified the design Anyway the point is without a photo, I am done.
Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Well, there’s a photo of CF Zimmermann playing an autoharp shaped like Fig. 1 in US257,808, so we know he built at least one, maybe two.

But back to the tuning pins on the autoharp in Grmany: they look fatter than what CFZ put on his autoharps, more like piano pins. (I own a Philadelphia autoharp and haven seen an instrument he made that’s similar to what’s in Germany, having zither pins, too.)

The question may always remain: in which did the autoharp >idea< travel? West, or east? I thought the tuning pins might be a good place to start.

Thank you for trying to process this through with me, I will carry on. This discussion has brought new thoughts about some of the data I have to the fore, particularly from two European patents.
Clay Schaeffer
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Clay Schaeffer »

Even if the pins were commercially made It is quite possible the instrument is a "one off" from an amateur or professional luthier. I have used zither pins for some instruments but always bought them. I do have an old hammered dulcimer with handmade pins, and an antique Spanish style harp with what appears to be hand made pins. The pins in your picture appear to be more refined than either of those.
Lucille Reilly
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Re: Vintage tuning pins

Post by Lucille Reilly »

Thank you very much for this, Clay. Certain details tell me this is "one-off," and I do believe the pins were manufactured and purchased, rather than hand-made. "Where and when were they made?" is the the question!

UPDATE: I've found some promising online leads to year range of manufacture, plus some patents. The search is just beginning. There is so much to learn. I wish my piano-tuning instructor were still alive, for he surely would have known something more.
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