DECKER & SON vs. DECKER BROS. circa 1880's

“I THINK," said Mr. Myron A. Decker, the head of the well-known house

of Decker & Son, piano manufacturers of New York City, "that more persistent

and malicious efforts are made to persecute me than, any man in the

trade I know of."

It was while a reporter of the MUSICAL PIANO AND TRADE BEVIEW was

sitting in Mr. Decker's office, just before the examination of the "Baby"

Grand spoken of in our last issue, that the above remark was made.

“Here, as you know," continued Mr. Decker, " I have been manufacturing

pianos for about twenty-five years, and yet some of my rivals would like

to take from me the right to use my own name, and if possible to run me out

of the business. I know very well that I make a thoroughly good piano, a

great deal better piano than many others make, and I suppose it is the quality

of my goods that hurts them."

" Yes," replied the reporter, " you certainly do make an excellent piano.

But if your enemies trouble you, why don't you fight ? Your piano is good

enough, but there is one thing that should be combined with it."

"And that is," said Mr. Decker.

"Aggressiveness," replied the reporter. "If, as you say, parties are

trying to walk all over you, you should strike out straight from the

shoulder."

Mr. Decker smiled at this point as if he had his share of aggressiveness,

and was prepared to make use of it at the right time.

“The feeling extends," he continued, "even to agents and dealers,

rivals of my agents and dealers, all over the country; it has grown so that it

is difficult to keep track of it, and it has become so common that I should

have my hands about full to attend to it. I think it will be a good idea to

take some one person, and make an example of him that will frighten the

others. Some of my manufacturing rivals having started the ' fraud ' cry,

it has been taken up by dealers, who find it very convenient, I suppose,

when my pianos come in competition with those they handle, to take up the

howl of ' bogus, bogus!' "

“Here is one way in which the thing is worked," and Mr. Decker handed

the reporter a slip cut from the Montreal Herald and Daily Commercial

Gazette, dated Saturday, June 18th, 1881, which read as follows:

“PERSONAL.—We have had the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Myron A. Decker, of the well-known firm of Decker & Son, piano manufacturers, New

York. Mr. Decker visits our city in the interests of his business, and, we

understand, has established his agency at the extensive house of the N. Y.

Piano Company, 226 and 228 St. James Street. Mr. Decker is one of the

oldest and most respectable piano manufacturers in America, having worked

at the bench with the celebrated Albert Weber over thirty years ago. His

instruments have the endorsement of the leading musicians of the country,

and are as handsome in style as they are sweet and beautiful in tone."

When the reporter had read the above, Mr. Decker said, " It is strange,

is it not, that after my arrival in Montreal to place an agency there, this

little paragraph should turn up, and in the same issue of the paper that the

above appeared in ? “and Mr. Decker handed the reporter another slip of

paper on which he read:

BEWARE of bogus "Decker" Pianos. DECKER BROS., of Union Square,

New York, are alone entitled to the trademark, "THE DECKER," and De-

Zouche & Co. are the sole agents.

“Curious coincidence that, isn't it? Possibly some of them will say, if

the cap fits me I may wear it. But that's nonsense, I know what the thing

amounts to, and I don't hesitate to put the matter before you."

“Now here is another phase of the question: let me read you a part of

a letter which is similar to thousands I receive. It is from John A. Gilbert,

my agent in Crawfordsville, Ind. He writes me to send him one of my best

uprights for exhibition at some fair in the West, and says:

‘I want to take the rag from my competitors who claim that the piano

you make is bogus, and a base imitation of the genuine. Their denunciations

are loud and deep. They say that you are counterfeiters, and make a third-class

instrument. Told all this to the party to whom I sold my initial

Decker & Son piano; called it a cheap, snide thing. They have one Weber,

Emerson and Kimball."

“Now what would you do to such fellows as those he speaks of," asked

Mr. Decker.

“Do," repeated the reporter, " Why the first thing I should do would

be to get my batteries perfectly in order before opening fire on them."

Who was Adam Weishaupt?

Adam Weishaupt was born February 6, 1748 of Jewish parents but grew up in the Catholic faith. When his father, George Weishaupt, died in 1754, Adam was adopted by a fellow professor named Baron Ickstatt who was curator of the university of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, and was forced into formal indoctrination of Jesuit ideals of Catholic global Luciferianism at the age of seven.

He graduated from the University of Ingolstadt in 1768, and was made a tutor and catechist. In 1772 he was made a professor of Law. He was initiated as a Freemason in 1774 in Germany, but found that no one in his order truly understood the occult significance of the ceremonies. He decided to found his own organization, which he did on the first of May 1776. This organization was first known as "The Order of Perfectibilists" but became famous as the Illuminati for short. Only five people were present at the first meeting of the order, but it grew rapidly and only a few years later it had chapters all over Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Hungaria and Switzerland. Weishaupt and his co-conspirators, notably Baron Knigge and a lawyer named Zwack, had soon established a network of agents around Europe that infiltrated courts and other places of power and reported back useful gossip and information to Weishaupt. The Illuminati's true goals were shrouded in mystery. Because of Weishaupt´s strong anti-clerical and anti-royalist views, some have assumed that the Illuminati were some sort of communistic organization dedicated to bringing about a proletarian revolution. (taken from http://home.swipnet.se/~w-40977/coolpeople/weishaupt.html)

Here is a revealing quote by Weisaupt on the Illuminati: 

"The great strength of our Order lies in it's concealment, let it never appear in any place in it's own name, but always covered by another name, and another occupation.  None is fitter than the three lower degrees of Freemasonry, the public is accustomed to it, expects little from it, and therefore takes little notice of it.  Next to this, the form of a learned or literary society is best suited to our purpose, and had Freemasonry not existed, this cover would have been employed; and it may be much more than a cover, it may be a powerful engine in our hands.  By establishing Reading Societies, and subscription libraries, and taking these under our direction, and supplying them through our labours, we may turn the public mind which way we will."

To further illuminate, a book by Weishaupt, originally published in German in 1804:

Diogenes' Lamp; or, An Examination of Our Present-Day Morality and Enlightenment

 

Short History of the Lester Piano Co.

The Lester Piano Company which was located in Tinicum Township between Manhattan and Messasoit Avenues, was a major piano manufacturer from 1888 to 1960. From "The Music Trades" we read: 

 "Demand for Grands So Great Lester Piano Co Forced to Build New Addition to Big Plant LESTER PA Oct 9, 1922 

"With the completion of another large building at the twenty acre plant of the Lester Piano Co this firm will be able to double its production of Lester grands for which the demand has been increasing faster than production The new addition will also make it possible to introduce new manufacturing methods which will result in certain economies without in any way affecting quality it is stated. More and better business is in prospect say the officials.
 "Philadelphians often commented upon the rapid growth of the Lester Piano Co. Francis A North became associated with the first generation of Lesters engaged in the piano business when the instruments were manufactured in a third story back room at 1308 Chestnut Street over a retail store. Shortly after that, the firm moved into larger quarters at Ninth and Division Streets, which it soon outgrew. The next location was in a new factory built outside the city limits. The community that grew up around this plant was called Lester, taking its name from the piano. Almost every year since, a new building was added to the plant. The firm's larger quarters was needed due to the then high demands for their instruments. Originally in 1888 it was fifty pianos that year, all made by hand. In 1908 it was 5,000. The present capacity (in 1922) is 12,000 instruments annually. 
"Some of the skilled artisans making Lester pianos today began with the original firm. One thing that makes the employees contented is the light well ventilated buildings. Sons and daughters of old employees follow in the footsteps of their ancestors as Lester piano makers. Much of the credit for the rapid growth of the Lester Piano Co is due to G L Miller, son of George Miller. He has been largely responsible for the excellent routing in the manufacturing process. Once the lumber leaves the car it never goes over the same route twice in being incorporated in a Lester piano." 
end of article

The Stroboscope

Although the stroboscope was invented way back in 1832, quite possibly the first application of the stroboscope as a tuning device for pianos didn't happen until 1915. We read a short article in The Tuners' Magazine from July of 1915 describing the patent of such a device. I quote the article in part:
"The operation of the Gordon device (invented by Philip Gordon, a piano tuner from Barre, Vermont - ed.) is based on the principle of relative or absolute synchronism between a device rotating at a known speed and a (piano) wire vibrating at the same speed or a multiple thereof. A small disc is rotated at any one of a number of known speeds depending on the note desired, and the sound vibrations are received by a microphone, which is the same as that used on all telephones to receive the spoken words, which converts the sound vibrations into electrical vibrations. This microphone is connected in a circuit with a magnetic device which converts the electrical vibrations in the circuit to mechanical vibrations indicated by pendulum-like swing of a ray of light. This light strikes on a small ground glass finder very much resembling that used in a camera.

"An indicator is used to regulate the rate of revolution of the disk, and by merely turning the indicator point to the position designated for the desired note and then starting the revolution of the disk, the operator has merely to tighten or loosen his string and watch the action of the light. Without resetting his machine he can absolutely tune each string of the same note."

I'd like to have seen such a device to see if it was like the StroboConn, invented in 1936.

The Soundboard of the Piano

During the time when the piano was going through much scientific development to establish "standard" designs of its various components, or to put a time frame on it, going back to the nineteenth century, the development of the soundboard was going through experiments of the empirical kind because at that time there was precious little solid scientific information on which to base soundboard construction. So we find ideas such as the wave theory that supposes the piano's tone quality and volume is dependent on the design of the soundboard. According to this theory, the soundboard shapes the sound wave transversely so as to give a piano its distinct sound, relegating all other factors such as hammers and strings to secondary status, if that. Another theory purports that the soundboard produces waves that travel through the air as compressions and rarefactions, or in other words, as longitudinal waves, being driven by the strings. No coloration of tone is possible by the soundboard since no transverse waves would be produced.

Experiments were done using different materials for the soundboard, such as copper, iron, and other metals, with varying degrees of success. One may presume these were not subsequently pursued because of costs. One experiment used parchment as soundboard material which proved totally unfit. So wood was the ultimate material of choice.

Dolge in his book "Pianos and Their Makers" wrote of experiments carried out at the Mathushek factory during the years of 1867 to 1869 which were done to find out how thick a soundboard needs to be to be most responsive to the string vibrations. The experiments consisted of using various thicknesses of soundboard panels from a full one inch to three-sixteenths of an inch, and trying varying tapered thicknesses within boards. All kinds of variations to the ribbing were also tried. In the end, the report was that the most satisfactory board was three-eighths of an inch thick in the treble, tapering off to one-fourth of an inch in the bass. The ribs were placed practically equal distance from each other, tapering to somewhat closer together in the treble. All this pointed up the fact that the most important reason for good tone in a piano is the stringing scale and hammers. The importance of the soundboard as related to tone is shown solely by how faithfully it transfers the sound from the vibrating string into the air.

Although these experiments were done in the late 1860's, many other experiments were done by other makers, and you will find various numbers of ribs and configurations in pianos throughout the late 1800's. By the early twentieth century, rib patterns settled down to a fairly consistent standard of 10 to 14 or so ribs per board, depending on the size of the piano, fairly equi-distant from each other to somewhat closer together in the treble, as per the Mathushek experiments. Rib dimensions are thicker in height in the middle and less so at the ends.

There have been, of course, successful soundboard designs that deviate from the standard layout, but no substantial improvement over the traditional soundboard has yet come about by such designs. And there is still a wide open field as to what soundboard material might be used as an improvement over the traditional spruce wood. This would, however, necessitate changing the design and layout of a spruce board to suit the new material to a greater or lesser degree, but that will necessitate much experimentation on the part of the designer. And to what end? To possibly have a piano that will not be affected as much by atmospheric changes? But at what cost? It is certainly not an area that will yield any sort of enticing return for the experimenter, that is certain.