M. Welte & Sons, New York
The German firm M. Welte & Söhne, Freiburg (1832-1951) was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach in 1832 by Michael Welte (1807-1880). M. Welte & Sons in New York was the American subsidiary of M. Welte & Söhne, founded by Emil Welte in 1866 and managed by him until 1912. The branch office in New York served primarily the sale of the Orchestrion produced in Germany and for the support of US customers.
Factory building of M. Welte & Söhne in Freiburg (ca. 1912)
From 1832 to 1932, the firm produced mechanical musical instruments of the highest quality, primarily the development and construction of orchestrions from 1850 up to the early 20th century. In 1872, the firm moved from the remote Black Forest town of Vöhrenbach into a newly developed business complex beneath the main railway station in Freiburg, Germany. Their major breakthrough was substituting perforated paper rolls for wooden pin-studded cylinders.
Emil Welte (1841-1923), the eldest son of Michael, had immigrated to the United States in 1865. In 1883 he patented the paper roll method (U.S. Patent 287,599), the model of the later piano roll. Welte began only building instruments using the new technique, which was also licensed to other companies. With branches in New York and Moscow and representatives throughout the world, Welte became very well known.
The firm was already famous for its inventions in the field of the reproduction of music when Welte introduced the Welte-Mignon reproducing piano in 1904. “It replayed automatically the tempo, phrasing, dynamics and pedaling of a particular performance and not just the notes of the music as it was the case with other player pianos at the time.”
In September 1904, the Mignon was presented at the Trade Fair in Leipzig. In March 1905, it became better known when showcased “at the showrooms of Hugo Popper, a manufacturer of roll-operated orchestrions”.
By 1906, the Mignon was also exported to the United States and installed in pianos by the firms Feurich and Steinway & Sons. As a result of this invention one could now record and reproduce the music played by a pianist as true to life as it was technologically possible at the time. Welte Philharmonic Organ
From 1911 on, a similar system was developed for organs of the brand “Welte Philharmonic-Organ”. Thirteen well-known European organist-composers of the era, among them Alfred Hollins, Eugene Gigout and Max Reger, were photographed while recording for this organ. Distinguished organists like Edwin Lemare, Clarence Eddy and Joseph Bonnet were recorded too.
The largest Philharmonic Organ ever built is to be seen at the Salomons Estate of the Markerstudy Group, built in 1914 for Sir David Lionel Salomon. One of these organs can also be seen in the Scotty’s Castle museum in Death Valley, where it is played regularly during museum tours. An organ built for the HMHS Britannic never made its way to Belfast due to the outbreak of the First World War. Today it is playing in the Swiss National Museum in Seewen.
M. Welte & Sons, Inc.
In 1912, the American subsidiary of M. Welte & Söhne became M. Welte & Sons, Inc., a company incorporated in New York. Shareholders of the new company were predominant family members in the U.S. and Germany, among them Barney Dreyfuss, Edwin’s brother-in-law.
The Welte Artistic Player Co, founded in 1906 by Edwin Welte and Karl Bockisch for the distribution of Welte-Mignon instruments, merged with the new company. In the same year a new factory building was established in Poughkeepsie, New York on the New York Central Railroad line.
Welte manufacturing building in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
The high customs for the import of complete instruments from Germany could be significantly reduced by the mixed manufacture from German and American parts. Up to 1914, about 30 philharmonic organs were installed in the USA, mostly in the private homes of super-rich people.
The Welte-Mignon player piano
Great War in Europe and Events in America, Decline and Bankruptcy
With the entry of the U.S. into the First World War the German property and U.S. patents of M. Welte & Sons., Inc. were confiscated in April 1917 under the Alien Property Custodian Act and publicly auctioned in March 1919. The company was sold by the new owners in May 1919 to George W. Gittins, who sold the plant in Poughkeepsie. The company name M. Welte & Sons, Inc., New York had been changed to Welte-Mignon Corporation and was later controlled by the Estey-Welte Corporation founded in 1922.
The complex playing mechanism of the Welte instruments.
The post-WW I depression and new technologies like the radio and the electric record players in the 1920s virtually brought about the extinction of the firm and its expensive instruments. Other companies with similar products like American Piano Co (Ampico) and Duo-Art also began to disappear from the scene.
Estey-Welte Corporation, New York, B-stock certificate number B0885, 35 shares, issued to George Lindley on November 29, 1926.
Estey-Welte Corporation, New York, B-stock certificate number B417, 100 shares (ex LaBarre Rarities 4 and scripophily.com). Also known is an odd-lot certificate of the same type in blue, serial no. B885. “Class A” stocks are known. There is an odd-lot in green serial no. A1245 and another was sold in 1994 Smythe auction 129 lot 2101(#A4234, creased). Several Class A 100 shares in orange are known, including serial no. A488. All of these were printed by the Hamilton Bank Note Co.
The difficult business situation led to a reorganization of the Estey-Welte Corporation in 1927. The company’s name changed to Welte Co, Inc., (DE). By November 1927, Welte Co, Inc., and the Welte-Mignon Corporation were in serious financial difficulties.
Welte Company, Inc., Delaware, preferred stock certificate number P0180. The Welte stock certificates were issued during the reorganization of the Estey-Welte Corporation and the simultaneous modification of the Estey-Welte Corporation’s name to the Welte Company, Inc. during the period January to June 1927. An odd-lot common certificate is known of the same type in blue, serial no. C074.
In 1928, the companies were acquired and reorganized by the investment bank Morton, Lachenbruch & Co as the Welte-Mignon Corporation (DE). In 1929 the newly founded company became insolvent and it was acquired by Donald F. Tripp. Subsequent the company became the Welte-Tripp Organ Corporation. This company went bankrupt in 1931. Donald Tripp handed the Welte organ division to the “W. W. Kimball Company”, an organ builder in Chicago, Illinois.
Welte-Mignon Piano Corporation, New York, stock certificate issued 24 April 1930, bearing the signature of Otto Kremp, President.
The traces of the American Welte companies were lost. Only two service companies named Welte-Mignon Piano Corporation and Welte-Mignon Piano Service Co (managed by the former Welte Freiburg employee Otto Kremp), still existed in the 1940s.
The business complex of M. Welte & Söhne in Freiburg was bombed and completely destroyed in November 1944. This event seemed to obliterate the closely kept secrets of the firm and their recording apparatus as well as the recording process. But in recent years parts of the recording apparatus of the Welte Philharmonic-Organs and documents were discovered in the US. It was then possible to theoretically reconstruct the recording process. The Augustiner Museum of Freiburg keeps the legacy of the company that survived the Second World War.
Based on current information the scripophily of the Welte companies (illustrated) is all scarce to rare.
A Short History of the Welte-Mignon in USA … see here
-
Hans-Georg Glasemann
I am a collector of historical securities and active in the collectors club EDHAC. Support the EDHAC, become a member...
If you want to subscribe to the Nonvaleurs blog free of charge, click "RSS feed" in the upper right corner. Older contributions to the blog can be found by clicking "Archive"!
Source: Wikipedia and HGG (F9/21-1/2017). Many thanks to Max Hensley IBSS for revising this text.
