4/27/2021 0 Comments Martin Trombone Serial Numbers
In 1971 Leblanc (the French woodwind company that had recently merged with Holton) took over the Martin assets, moving them to Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Martin Trombone S Professional Players HonestlyThe Martin label has always been associated with high quality and limited production, promoted by a devoted group of professional players honestly convinced that Martin instruments had characteristics unmatched by any other brand.According to his great granddaughter, John Heinrich Martin was born on February 24, 1835 in Dresden Germany He learned to make instruments in Germany as an apprentice.In 1855 he emigrated to the United States, and, in 1865, he moved to Chicago. In 1871 his factory was destroyed by a fire in Chicago, sources are in conflict about whether it was The Great Chicago Fire, or not. He then moved to Elkhart, Indiana in 1876 and became the 6th employee of C.G. Conn Company, where he worked until his health forced him to retire in 1902. A second company called The Martin Band Instrument Company was founded in 1904 (some sources claim 1906) by the John Heinrich (by now Henry) Martin and his five sons of John Martin. From 1919 until 1931, O. P. Basset was the president of the company. Henry Charles Martin, John Henrys oldest son, continued to work for the company until 1923. In 1928, Martin acquired controlling interest in The Indiana Band Instrument Company, which operated as a separate company until 1942, when it moved under the flag of Martin to become the producer of student line instruments, a strong and growing market at that time. It was in the late 30s that the famous Martin Committee was designed. Concerning the role of Renold Schilke in the design of the Committee, Wallace Roney says. Then he said ah yes, these are mine, the ones I made, not the other guys, (meaning Leblanc). He proceeded to show me step by step how he made the horn with a cornet leadpipe, tapered tuning slide, and a fast taper in the bell-tail to the flair. He also told me that he was the one who designed the Martin Committee in 1939, and proceeded with the horn, well into the 60s, up the point when Schilke started making his own horns, which I believe he started in 1956. He also believed his Schilke horns had improvements on the Committee design. Although he made special horns for special people that had these same improvements under the Martin Committee and Magna name. And believe me, in 1981, he was still extremely proud of those horns (the Martins from 1940-65). It is generally believed that the quality of Martin products eroded after 1956 -- in an interview Chet Baker spoke about switching to a Connstellation at that time because a trip to the Martin factory did not yield a good horn. In 1961, Paul Richards formed the Richards Music Corporation by purchasing and merging Martin, Blessing and Reynolds. During this period Martins carry an RMC marking, which officially stood for Roundtable of Musical Craftsmen, not Richards Music Corporation. Dizzy Gillespie played Martins into the RMC era and it was in this period when a production model Dizzy style horn was available. In 1963, Richards Music was dissolved and a year later, Wurlitzer, who apparently had financed RMC, ended up with the assets of Martin, including registered trademarks, copyrights, patents, engineering records and tooling and maintained production for a short time. At roughly that same time, the F.E. Olds Son Co purchased the assets of Reynolds and moved manufacturing of those designs to Fullerton, California.
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