A message by: erorgelt@balloon.franken.de (Erlanger Drehorgeltrio)

> From: "Todd & Betty Augsburger" <allmax@bright.net>
> To: rolls@foxtail.com, hk@balloon.franken.de
> Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 09:34:50 -0400
>
> Subject: Ariston Organ
>
> Ingmar Krause and MMD members,

Hello again Todd,

> Unfortunately, I find no markings in either location. There is what
> appears to be a dealer's label on the bottom:
>
>     Musical Instrument Dealer
>     249, Bute St.
>     S. A. Chave
>     Cardiff
>     Anchor Music Stores

Never heard of them, but I know that these Instruments have been sold
throughout the world.  They even had some disc series especially for some
countries: Spain, Italy, ...

> otherwise no markings other than the word "Patent" on the outside of
> the frame casting. Is there another way to date/identify the organ?

"Patent" usually was standing on the holding of the bow for the keys.
On the "box" itself sometimes was painted-on "Ariston".

Well, no way to identify this special box without number, but you do have
indeed an Ariston.

I could probably date it by seeing the box myself.  There are some tricky
indices which I'm not going to tell about.  :)

> Disc details are:
>
>    131: Home, Sweet Home, Heimath, Süsse Heimath
>    1939: Gavotte out of "Mignon", by Ambroise Thomas

As said...

>    1343: Oft In The Stilly Night, song of Ireland
>    3549: Little Annie Rooney, sung by Michael Nolan
>    3672: Carman Up To Data, waltz by Meyerlutz

These are missing in our Archive.  Could you make DIN-A3 photocopies
of them?  [A3 is approx. 11x17 inches.]  Best way to do so:

                        ___________
 Beginning of disc A > | /  |  \   |
                       |(   o   ) /|
                       | \     / (-| < Beginning of disc B
                       |  `---'   \|
                        ~~~~~~~~~~~

Continue the same way with B,C and C,A

> These seem rather odd titles (like "... Stilly Night"?  or
> "... Up To Data"?).  Were there translation problems, or what?

As you see, "Stilly Night" is Irish -- so no mistake?

"...up to DatA" is wrong, of course. It has to be: "...up to DatE"
And I guess its "CarmEn" and not "CarmAn".

> That's correct, Ingmar. One disc has printed marks corresponding to
> the ends of each cutout--were all these discs hand cut? Some of them?

Yes, all of these original discs were hand-cut (but, of course, not
with a knife; they already had cutting-machines, and these were manually
operated).

The disc with the marks for the holes is a special one.  It is the
[master-] disc which been on top of about 4 to 9 discs which were cut
at the same time.

Sometimes we find discs with marks on them, but there aren't the holes
on these places.  The melody of the marks then had been a not-so-well-
selling disc, and so they "recycled" the already mark-printed discs by
not using them as top discs, but underneath.  So the holes became the
salable melody.

> Thanks for your reply,

No problem.

> Todd Augsburger
> allmax@bright.net

greetings by(e) Ingmar Krause

ERlanger drehORGEL-Trio, Familie Krause, erorgelt@balloon.franken.de