Any way to know how old your harmonica is?
does any one know how to tell how old a harmonica is? My grandfather gave me a Hohner Chromonica back in the 80's and I would like to get an idea of how long he had it before he gave it to me. I've had it 30 years now.
Wow! Thanks for all that. The case is a soft green wraparound. there is no model on the harmonica itself, but the case says it is a c260. It's a 10 hole. Straight tuned. It has a bunch of awards on the bottom. The top is pretty plain. Tomorrow I'll try to get some pictures taken And posted.
It's a Hohner 260, then. The soft green case is 1960s. The awards have always been on the bottom cover. At the very center is a medallion held by two hands at right and left. The center of the medallion is empty on all but the oldest ones, which (before about 1937) had a six-pointed star in the medallion (though rosettes and 5-pointed stars have appeared in some of the very early ones).
Which model is it? Chromonica is a term that Hohner uses for several different ones. The 12-hole version is the Super Chromonica, or 270. The 16-hole version comes in the traditional "64" 280 version, the Super 64 (introduced approx. ate 1970s), and the Super 64x version (1980s). All these models have been in production for over 20 years.
Do you have the box or case for it? Recent versions all have a hard plastic box, green for the 270, black for the 16-holers. During the mid-1960s through some time in the 1970s, they had soft wraparound plastic pouches, green for the 270 and brown for the 280. Earlier 270s had a red cardboard box with fancy texturing, while the 280 had a hard red box (1950s) and earlier had a round-top wooden box with fake texture finish and yelow lining.
Is the harmonica straight tuned or cross tuned? If all the top halves are open in a straight line, that's straight tuning. If the openings alternate between top and bottom half of the hole, that's cross tuning. Until about 1955 16-holers were straight-tuned, afer which they were cross-tuned. Look at the openings inside the round holes, with the slide in the out position (i.e., not pressed in). (The 270 has always been straight tuned.)
The 270 has always had a wood comb with nailed-on reedplates. The 280 went from nailed-on wood (up until the early 1950s), then pinkish-borwn plastic with drift pins (1950s to about 1980), to screwed-on black (up to the present).
Prior to about 1937 the 270 had a six-pointed star in a medallion at the center of the bottom cover. The star vanished during the Nazi era and has never returned.
All Hohner harmonicas had 4-digit date stamps on the reedplates from 2005 until about two years ago.
There may be more subtle changes in construction that could further date a harmonica (such as the rounded rivet heads on prewar 64s) but that stuff is beyond my expertise.