HARMONICA TRUST.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 12 April 1929, Page 7

HARMONICA TRUST.

GERMAN FIRMS UNITE. /OFTFUT 50,000/) 09 IMpUTR ORGANS. The new German uMoutli Organ Trust lias completed, its organisation and is preparing to make vigorous- efforts to control the world’s harmonica market. It has been farmed by a fusion of the two lending mouth organ manufacturing firms in Germany, Mathias llohner ami Andreas Koch, which have in the course of the last year absorbed several smaller linns. The new organisation will have virtually a world, monopoly. The house- of llohner is nearly 100 years' old. Mathias llohner, the foundin'. w-as a watchmaker by trade and was the first to produce mouth organs —an invention of a wood-turner named Holz —in large quantities. To-day, of the total German output of 55,000,1100 mouth organs- a year, the llohner linn makes about one-lialf.

•Germany exports every year d 0,000.000 mouth organs, to the- value of about £800,000.' Her best customer is the United States, which, takes 40 per cent, of the entire output. Great Britain takes 10 per cent, and India (i per cent. Argentina. Italy and Canada also are good buyers.