Hamburg Steinway, sostenuto - not

[Kazuo Yoshizaki]

I learned at school that Claude Montal was the one who invented the
sostenuto, but according to Wikipedia:
-----------
The *sostenuto* was first shown at the Paris
Exhibition<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paris_Exhibition&action=edit>of
1844 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1844>, by *Boisselot* and
Sons<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boisselot_and_Sons&action=edit>,
a Marseille company. French piano builders Alexandre Francois
Debain<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexandre_Francois_Debain&action=edit>and
Claude
*Montal*<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claude_Montal&action=edit>built
*sostenuto* mechanisms in 1860 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860>,
and 1862<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1862>,
respectively. These innovative efforts did not immediately catch on with
other piano builders. In 1874 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1874>, Albert
Steinway<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Steinway&action=edit>perfected
and patented the
*sostenuto* *pedal*.
-----------

As far as I know, the sostenuto pedal was not so common in European (and
Japanese) pianos even in 1970's.
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