pianoman wrote: > > Since we are on the current thread of screwstringers, does anyone know who > invented or patented the system? Since M&H started piano making in around > 1883 were their first pianos screwstringers also? If not, has anyone seen > a pre-1895 M&H grand that wasn't a screwstringer? What about the uprights, > did they use screwstringing also or the norm? I have only tuned 1 > screwstringer (grand) in my life, many years ago, and the one I tuned was > not a memorable or impressive experience. I think M&H expertise before > Gertz was just not there but lay in their reed organs. > James Grebe > R.P.T. from St. Louis > pianoman@inlink.com > "Take me through the darkness to the break of the day" > .- James, The few sources I have don't give much information about the screw stringer mechanism. They mostly discuss Richard W. Gertz and his development of new scale designs and the tension resonator for Mason & Hamlin with only a passing mention of the screw stringer idea harking "back to Taskin's similar invention, previously imitated by Pleyel, Brinsmead and others...". Presumably, the idea was abandoned early on and therefore not much is mentioned on the subject. Taskin was a French harpsichord maker so the invention must go back 100 plus years before Gertz. I have one reference listing the first Mason & Hamlin uprights being built in 1881, grands shortly thereafter. I had a friend who owned a M & H screw stringer upright. I don't recall the year it was made. -- Thomas A. Cole RPT Santa Cruz, CA
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