Is this maker gone?

[Daniel Hersh]

This maker's web site no longer works, and this blog post seems to indicate bankruptcy and closure. Does anyone know any more?

[Stephen Chambers]

That's what I heard at German Concertina Meeting last weekend Daniel, though I can't vouch for it.

 

Mind you, after the "quality" of some of the work they did for me and their "can't do" attitude, I'm hardly surprised...

[Daniel Hersh]

That's what I heard at German Concertina Meeting last weekend Daniel, though I can't vouch for it.

 

Mind you, after the "quality" of some of the work they did for me and their "can't do" attitude, I'm hardly surprised...

The one time I tried to deal with them myself was rather odd, though I was satisfied in the end with the concertina that I wound up buying from one of their dealers (Castiglione). Digging around on the web, I get the impression that they were intended to be a kind of self-supporting living museum rather than a standard sort of business, which might help explain the way they dealt with at least some of their customers and potential customers. Still, I'm sorry to see them gone if they are gone. They could make a good basic 20-button concertina, and I believe that they were the last surviving maker in the very long German tradition of small concertina building. There's Suttner, of course, but his instruments are built with English-style construction, and there are the bandoneon makers Hartenhauer, Gutjahr, and bandonion-carlsfeld.de but they don't make "our" size of concertina.

[Stephen Chambers]

...I get the impression that they were intended to be a kind of self-supporting living museum rather than a standard sort of business...

 

The very name Schaumanufaktur means "Show-factory" and it was intended to be a visitor attraction.

 

 

...which might help explain the way they dealt with at least some of their customers and potential customers...

 

I used to think it was down to their being former communists, but somebody in Germany suggested it had more to do with them being "mountain people"...

 

 

They could make a good basic 20-button concertina, and I believe that they were the last surviving maker in the very long German tradition of small concertina building.

 

Yes, they took over and continued the old Scholer business, though I had problems even with traditional German-style concertina reed blocks in instruments that they made for me...

 

(I'll post photos.)