Heinrich Weiss (collector)

Heinrich Weiss (born June 22, 1920 in Albisrieden ; † January 9, 2020 in Seewen ) was a Swiss collector and patron ; he was the owner of a print shop and co-developer of today's barcode .

The beginning

Heinrich Weiss grew up in Erlenbach on Lake Zurich . Already in his youth he began to repair weight clocks, whereby he laid the basis for his collection by keeping irreparable items. In 1939 he completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic at the Asper machine factory in Küsnacht and then worked at the Escher Wyss machine factory in Zurich as a mechanic and “grenade grinder”. In addition to his job, he began studying mechanical engineering at the evening technical college. In the war years he did active service. In 1944 he fell seriously ill and had to go to a lung sanatorium in Davos . During this time he continued his mechanical engineering studies. After the war and recovery, he found a job at the Rang spring factory in Pfäffikon . During this time he used his shift work to be able to attend business administration lectures at ETH Zurich during the day .

The printing company

Now married, he took over the completely outdated printing company in Basel from his in-laws in 1950 . He specialized in printing labels and folding boxes and developed the first pushing machines for printed sheets under the name Fibromax , which he was able to successfully sell to the printing industry. In addition, he improved the efficiency of his company through good quality management so significantly that he became a respected supplier to the chemical industry in Basel and had a technological lead over other packaging manufacturers for years.

At this time Heinrich Weiss also developed the barcode, which is now attached to every package as an EAN code. Thanks to this barcode, the Weiss printing company was able to guarantee that the types and languages of the packaging produced there were correctly separated.

The collection

He had continued collecting activities and now needed his own warehouse in Basel to accommodate them. In addition to clocks and music boxes , he has now also collected orchestras , automatic pianos and other mechanical musical instruments. His house, which had meanwhile been built in Seewen ( Canton Solothurn ), burned down in 1960; during the reconstruction, a spacious hall and a restoration workshop were added for the collection . In the mid-1960s he was able to acquire one of the very few available philharmonic organs from the company M. Welte & Söhne from Freiburg im Breisgau from an industrial company in Germany , which together with 1,400 piano rolls formed another milestone in the collection. A separate hall had to be built for this huge instrument. During the restoration of the instrument between 2005 and 2007 it turned out that this organ was originally built for the HMHS Britannic .

After his museum opened in 1979, the music machine exhibition became an attraction for collectors and visitors from all over the world. At that time there were already over 800 instruments. Mechanical musical instruments had become a new profession and a calling for Heinrich Weiss-Stauffacher. The Weiss-Stauffacher Collection has become an internationally renowned address for the restoration of music boxes . Now an internationally recognized specialist, he began to write technical articles and designed a collection catalog. The collector from Seewen became a coveted and internationally sought-after speaker and specialist.

National Museum

In 1990 his daughter Susanne agreed to donate his private museum to the Swiss Confederation . The Department of the Interior integrated the collection into the Swiss National Museums , had a large extension built and renovated the existing exhibition rooms. In spring 2000 it was reopened as a museum for music automatons . Since then, it has been a tourist and cultural flagship of the Schwarzbubenland region and north-west Switzerland.

Honors

Heinrich Weiss received an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel in 1975 for his services to the preservation and research of historical instruments and music boxes . In 1978 he was awarded the Canton of Solothurn Recognition Prize by the Government Council of the Canton of Solothurn . In 1990 he became an honorary citizen of the Seewen community.

literature

Heinrich Weiss-Stauffacher: The Welte Philharmonic organ from the Heinrich Weiss-Stauffacher Collection in Seewen SO (Switzerland): Inauguration of the organ on May 30, 1970 . OO, no year: approx. 1970.
Heinrich Weiss-Stauffacher [Hrsg.]: Music automatons and mechanical musical instruments - descriptive catalog of the Seewener private collection . Zurich 1975.
Heinrich Weiss-Stauffacher [Hrsg.]: Swiss music boxes, mechanical musical instruments and jukeboxes: for the opening of the music boxes and jukeboxes exhibition in Schloss Blumenstein in Solothurn . Basel 1980.

Individual evidence

↑ Honor for 95-year-old founder of the Music Automat Museum. In: Solothurner Zeitung , June 23, 2015, accessed on February 12, 2016.
↑ The founder of the Museum for Music Automatons has died In: Solothurner Zeitung , January 16, 2020, accessed on January 20, 2020.
↑ Christoph E. Hänggi: The Seewener Britannic organ . Festschrift for the inauguration of the Welte Philharmonic Organ. Seewen / Switzerland: Museum for Music Automatons, 2007.

personal data
SURNAME	Weiss, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Stauffacher, Heinrich; Weiss-Stauffacher, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss entrepreneurs, technicians and collectors
DATE OF BIRTH	June 22, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH	Albisrieden
DATE OF DEATH	January 9, 2020
Place of death	Seewen

[1] Honor for 95-year-old founder of the Music Automat Museum. In: Solothurner Zeitung , June 23, 2015, accessed on February 12, 2016.

[2] The founder of the Museum for Music Automatons has died In: Solothurner Zeitung , January 16, 2020, accessed on January 20, 2020.

[Haenggi1-3] Christoph E. Hänggi: The Seewener Britannic organ . Festschrift for the inauguration of the Welte Philharmonic Organ. Seewen / Switzerland: Museum for Music Automatons, 2007.