#Wurlitzer spinet piano 1940s full

Vending machines are still manufactured in Germany using the Wurlitzer name under Gibson ownership.

Baldwin ceased making Wurlitzer-brand pianos in 2009. Ten years later, Gibson acquired Deutsche Wurlitzer and the Wurlitzer Jukebox and Vending Electronics trademarks, briefly bringing Wurlitzer's best-known products back together under a single corporate banner in 2006. The Baldwin Co., including its Wurlitzer assets, was subsequently acquired by the Gibson Guitar Corporation in about 1996. (commonly called the Baldwin Piano Company) in 1988, and most piano manufacturing moved overseas.

manufacturing facilities were acquired by the Baldwin Piano & Organ Co. The Wurlitzer piano and organ brands and U.S. Wurlitzer's jukebox operations were sold and moved to Germany in 1973. Wurlitzer also operated a chain of retail stores where the company's products were sold.Īs technology evolved, Wurlitzer began producing electric pianos, electronic organs and jukeboxes, and it eventually became known more for jukeboxes and vending machines, which are still made by Wurlitzer, rather than for actual musical instruments. Over time, Wurlitzer acquired a number of other companies which made a variety of loosely related products, including kitchen appliances, carnival rides, player piano rolls and radios. During the 1960s, they manufactured Spinet, Console, Studio and Grand Pianos. Wurlitzer is most known for their production of entry level pianos. It quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, player pianos and pipe or theatre organs popular in theatres during the days of silent movies. In 1880, the company began manufacturing pianos and eventually relocated to North Tonawanda, New York. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success, largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the United States. I hope this is helpful and if you have any questions about this topic or any other, please email me for more information.The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. Generally console pianos are superior to spinet pianos because of the regular style actions and the slightly taller size of the instruments which offers a more rewarding sound. With a smaller soundboard and shorter strings, the pianos are limited in the amount of sound they can produce. The inherent limitations in console and spinet pianos lies more in the size of the pianos more than anything else. At some point they lost favorability with consumers and have since been replaced by less expensive consoles that don’t have to sacrifice the quality of the actions.ĭespite spinets having different actions, there were some higher quality models – the Baldwin Acrosonic being a classic example – that were decent pianos. Whether it is short or tall, a console pianos have a regular style upright action where the key is much longer and connects directly to the action: Instead it drops down to the other part of the action.

#Wurlitzer spinet piano 1940s full

This is why they are called indirect blow actions, because you don’t have a full length key that interacts directly with the action. The instruments are so small that they have to change the way the action works in order to fit them into the piano.Ĭompared to a typical piano action, spinet pianos have shorter keys and they have rods that connect each key to the rest of the action. Spinet pianos have what’s called an indirect blow action (or drop action). Console and Spinet Pianos can look almost identical from the outside case but what lies beneath separates them a great deal from one another.īoth spinets and consoles are upright-style pianos that are typically very short The fundamental difference between the two types of pianos are the actions.