Hello! We have interesting news to the collectors community.
This is taken from our FaszinationKlaviere Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/FaszinationKlaviere-372299912835397/ 


Feurich books: update

We have spent three days at the Staatsarchiv Leipzig to read through
circa 60% of the documents.  Some books are not accessible as they
first have to be restored to be scanned.  Nevertheless just now we have
collected incredible details on the Feurich production.

Feurich delivered to places all over the world; amazing!  Especially on
the pianos being delivered to become a reproducing piano, i.e. Welte
Mignon, DUCA, Ducartist, Tri-Phonola, Stella, DEA.  Even technical
innovations -- like having Welte-Mignon built into upright or grand
pianos -- can be identified from these archive books.

The production books contain all steps of manufacturing for each
instrument (11 different specialised workers).  Just with the
approximately 60% of the data, impressive numbers show up: more than
1000 instruments for Welte were delivered (655 cabinet, 270 Welte
Pianos, 80 Welte grand pianos), more than 270 DUCA instruments (10
cabinet, 215 Pianos, 55 grand pianos).  These numbers will increase
significantly, once we had a chance to see all the books.

As we do not have the sales books of Welte or Philipps, we can't
double-check if all these became instruments for sale.  However we
expect that nearly all of them did, as huge investments went into
these.  More details to come.


Feurich production / sales books found

For decades these books were said to be lost.  With the fantastic
help of Dr. T. Kluttig (a big "Thank you!"), we now have found these
books at the Staatsarchiv Leipzig.  Incredible 20+ huge books
documenting the main part of the production of Feurich.  Beside
wonderful details on any Feurich instrument, these books allow an
insight into the production for M. Welte & Soehne (Freiburg) as all
deliveries are documented.

For the first time we now can find out how many Feurich instruments
had been sent to Welte (for Welte Mignon, but also for orchestrions like
"Luna" and "Artist", etc.) and also how many had been sent to Philipps
for DUCA pianos.  As Feurich had been the partner of choice for the
very beginning of Welte-Mignon, we might even find out more details on
the recording instruments, such as the first cabinet being presented at
the Leipzig fair.

The first peek into these valuable and aged books show amazing details,
i.e., Sep 1904: the first "Klavierraste" with serial no. 17237 was sent
to M. Welte (we need to check the earlier books again).  Nov 1904:
"2 Flügelrasten" were sent to Popper & Co (Leipzig) with serial no 17179
and 17198.  Might these have been used for recording grand pianos?  We
checked the books until 30 Oct 1906 so far: 159 "Mignon Klavierrasten"
had been delivered to M. Welte already; the highest serial no 19416
(not in a sequence).  Out of these just three are in our list of still
existent reproducing pianos.

As more or less every week Feurich had sent further instruments to
Welte, we expect to find out, that by far more Welte-Mignon instruments
have been produced than thought.  As of 10.10.1905 a tuning keyboard
("Stimmklaviatur") had been delivered with every Klavierraste!  The
books have not been scanned yet; we will try to bring this forward to
share this great content with the broader community for further
research.  We will share further details soon.  What an exciting
discovery.  (Source of photos: Staatsarchiv Leipzig)


Philipps DUCA Book I: roll recordings

We yesterday had the chance to have a closer look into the original
Philipps DUCA book I of DUCA roll recordings.  What an amazing piece
of history, starting with roll No. 1, July 22nd, 1908, up to 1912.
A book II must have existed; unfortunately this one seems to be lost.
We are about to agree to the professional scanning of the valuable book
I, to share the wonderful details with all Philipps DUCA lovers.

Best regards,
Marc Widuch - Faszination Klaviere
Munich, Germany
http://www.en.faszinationklaviere.de/ 

 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/09/22/170922_015000_FB_FeurichSalesBook.001.jpeg 
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/09/22/170922_015000_FB_FeurichWelte.001.jpeg 
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/17/09/22/170922_015000_FB_PhilippsDUCABook.001.jpeg