Decker Brothers
Decker Brothers was an American piano manufacturer . The company was based in New York in the Decker Building designed by John H. Edelmann, which is listed on the US National Directory of Historic Places. The company began making pianos in 1865. It was founded by David and John Decker after the brothers had received many patents in piano making.
The enterprise
The Decker Brothers pianos are known among piano connoisseurs for their exceptional quality. The New York Times wrote that the pianos "have a wide range" and "a well-known reputation for their superior quality." However, this brand did not get the level of awareness of some of its competitors, especially Steinway & Sons and Chickering and Sons , even though the Decker pianos were known to be on par with the Steinway and Chickering pianos of the time. Decker Brothers pianos don't sell for as much money these days as their famous counterparts, but they often sell for twice as much as other pianos from the era.
The company stopped building pianos after the death of one of the brothers around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The pianos
The pianos of the Decker Brothers had a typical sophisticated keyboard for the table pianos and a damper pedal , and had a very good string layout ("scaling") that was far ahead of its time. A Decker Brothers piano was recently described with an absolutely unusual design of the bass ("the most unusual design in the bass"): the strings lie under the cast plate; the tuning pegs run through an opening in the plate. It is assumed that the reason is that the coil of the wound string wire is closer to the sound post and the tuning peg has a more secure fit in the sound post. Decker Bros., along with Chickering, Weber and other US manufacturers, was part of the "Piano Wars" which, beginning between Steinway and Chickering at the Paris World's Fair in 1867 , extended well beyond the Centennial World's Fair in Philadelphia in 1876. In the disputes, fought out with all journalistic means at the time, the question, which was widely discussed in the press, was which product and manufacturer were entitled to the medals and the honor of the "world's best piano".
swell
- ^ New York architectural images: The Decker Building .
- ↑ en: National Register of Historic Places Information System
- ↑ FRAUD IN A TRADE-MARK .; DECKER BROTHERS, THE PIANO MANUFACTURERS, SUCCEED IN THEIR SUIT AN IMPORTANT CASE ENDED . New York Times . June 27, 1878. Retrieved February 22, 2008.
- ^ Pierce, Bob and Larry Ashley, Pierce Piano Atlas. 1996.
- ↑ 1874 Decker Brothers square piano, a high quality instrument . Archived from the original on July 3, 2008. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 22, 2008.
