Hi, Larry,
Chickering DID sell a lot of 67BB verticals during the twenty years from 1890 to 1910, they occupy most of the logbook entries :) If that was a strategy, it certainly worked; they also sold plenty of quartergrands.
I tried to get access to the Baldwin serial number book for my American Musical Instrument Society paper last May, but did not succeed. I later learned that the documents may have been recently bundled up and moved to Gibson in Nashville (I was given no explanation by Baldwin; this came from another source). I do hope that these documents will be available for study soon, because, like you, I believe the Baldwin piano was an important piano and shouldn't be forgotten.
The idea is to pull all the data together from a complete set of serial number books and catalogs, and to forensically study the pianos themselves, as well. That last part is incredibly valuable, to pull together our collective resources and share what we document of the actual pianos, we'll begin to get a more clear picture of the make, even as we still might not have access to the company documents yet.
There are other documents, too, of value. I'm interested in identifying the important men who designed these pianos, those in charge of "Inventions" or what we now call Research and Development. Often the companies had newsletters which included news on these men and their work. Knabe, for example, provided good information on their designers, factory heads and the like, so we know of Vogt and more than one generation of Sandlas; there is a concert grand scale in Knabe serial number book ten which is called the Sandlas scale.
The same should be said of Baldwin and its designers. I know that Lucien Wulsin was manufacturing head of Baldwin from 1890 (the effective beginning of the company) onwards, I don't know if he is responsible for the earliest scales we know of today, which catapulted Baldwin pianos to concert stage prominence by 1910. And I know that the 1930s brought new scales, so that, for example, the 5'8" went from 20 to 26 bass notes, and lost the plate "nose" or horn; these were probably less expensive pianos to build after the 1930s changes, and even more so after Conklin's changes in the 1960s. I know I've seen references to the earlier scale designers but can't put my finger on it right now.
In the meantime NAMM has put online a digitized archive of the Music Trades Review, which is an incredible achievement. Here's one search hit on their site that I got when I did a Baldwin search:
http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1906-42-12/index.php?page_no=8&fname=MTR-1906-42-12-08.pdf Bill
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William Shull
M.Mus.
Loma Linda CA
909-796-4226
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-11-2011 08:09
From: Larry Lobel
Subject: Chickering quarter grand
Hi Bill,
No, I didn't mean that the quarter-grand referred to a vertical; but that the model name
and advertising of it were designed to get potential buyers of verticals to consider buying a grand instead.
BTW, are you, or do you know of anyone, doing a study of the history of Baldwin? For
a company once considered a rival of Steinway and that was an important American piano maker for over 100 years, there is scant information about the once-great company.
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Larry Lobel RPT
Petaluma, California
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2011 15:34
From: William Shull
Subject: Chickering quarter grand
I'm in early stages of a Chickering history study and very interested in this discussion.
Fred, what you've said is very interesting. I hope to spend some serious time in the Strong Museum in Rochester NY which has the Aeolian archives, including Chickering pre-Aeolian (except the serial number books). So far have been deterred by weather, schedule and pocketbook, but will soon....don't know if that will shed any light on the basis for the Quartergrand name. I have a very nice 121 in the store which we've restrung, saving the original soundboard and plate finishes, and maintain a 122 (the no-cheekblocks Quartergrand), which has slots cut into the music desk for the nosebolts, too. Unlike the 121, it also has several wound tenor strings.
Larry, did I understand you to refer to the quartergrand as a vertical, or were you using the language only anagalously? Of course, the Quartergrand was a three-legged grand. But to make your point still, Chickering was, from early on, referring to their highest-end vertical as a "Cabinet Grand," while referring to all other uprights as uprights or verticals. This is clear in the serial number books, and probably (don't remember, and can't look it up right now) in the catalogs. Steinway took up this practice too in their catalogs.
I have started a page on Chickering studies with an email link to receive Chickering photos and data. I am seriously trying to build a large database on Chickering, and have the number book jpgs in my computer through 1920 or so (all but a very strange period around 1900 when all the entries were one piano per page - and that's worth a journal article in itself....). I intend to make it a two-way street at some point, with data and jpgs posted on a website, and some data downloadable.
But while flawed, at this point the most info on Chickering at a website that I know of is the site you referred to, Larry. I'm not sure who put it together, but I wish whoever it was would join us here :). And if Robin Hufford isn't on this history list he should be persuaded too, he's got a treasure trove of Chickering knowledge in his head.....
Bill
Bill Shull, RPT
President, Period Piano Center
www.periodpianos.org
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William Shull
M.Mus.
Loma Linda CA
909-796-4226
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2011 14:16
From: Fred Sturm
Subject: Chickering quarter grand
Very interesting literature!
The French refer to grand pianos as pianos with a tail (à queue), and smaller pianos were often called "half tail" (demi-queue). Spanish and Portuguese have a similar nomenclature (meia cauda in Portuguese). I guess it is possible that full tail would be concert grand, half would be a 7 foot, and quarter tail might be a 6 foot or less. Chickering might have borrowed this terminology, after a fashion.
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Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm@unm.edu
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination." - Einstein
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2011 09:25
From: Larry Lobel
Subject: Chickering quarter grand
It was nothing more than advertising hoopla, intended to boost upright buyers into thinking grand piano instead. See this ad:
http://www.antiquepianoshop.com/online-museum/chickering-sons/#
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Larry Lobel RPT
Petaluma, California
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