Two Wurlitzer Shipping Lists
Two Wurlitzer factory shipping lists are included here. They do not show
any production figures for purely domestic models, but only involve machines
wholly or partially made by the firm of J.D. Philipps and Son (also known as
the Pianella-Musikwerke), Frankfurt, Germany.
The type of instruments included in the lists are limited to:
- Philipps Pianella (Regular, P.M. & P.C. series) Orchestrions, and,
- Philipps Paganini (P.P. series) Geigen (Violin) Pianos and Orchestrions,
all of which were imported from Germany either as more or less complete instruments
or as just the mechanical chassis without the furniture case. However, no matter
whether complete or incomplete, and later finished by Wurlitzer, the final product
was sold in America by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company as:
- The Wurlitzer Regular PianOrchestra, or,
- The Wurlitzer Mandolin (PM series) PianOrchestra, or,
- The Wurlitzer Concert (PC series) PianOrchestra, or,
- The Wurlitzer Paganini Violin Piano or Orchestrion.
Wurlitzer's corporate executive offices were located in Cincinnati, Ohio,
while its huge manufacturing facility was headquartered in North Tonawanda,
New York, with its large complex of "modern" buildings clustered around the
original deKleist building (Eugene deKleist made the early American built automatic
instruments sold by Wurlitzer, such as the Tonophone and Mandolin Quartette).
Farny Wurlitzer, who was basically responsible for the manufacture and importation
of Wurlitzer automatic musical instruments, had his second floor office in the
main building of the North Tonawanda factory.
The shipping lists included here only span the years from 1912 up through
the mid 1920s, when shipping activity for the large orchestrions lagged, and
finally fell off to zero. Regrettably, these lists do not include the beginning
and early years of importation when sales of large orchestrions boomed. They
begin in 1912, when the heyday of large orchestrions was already waning, and
long after the first four regular style PianOrchestras were imported in 1903.
Who made up these lists and how they were used is unknown, although it is likely
that they were made up by someone associated with the main manufacturing facility
in upstate New York, and who was dealing with the domestic shipping of the imported
Philipps machines.
Interpreting the Lists
There are no column headings on the original hand-typed lists. Some columns
are jammed together with others, in order to fit all the needed information
within the confines of the width of a letter sized sheet of paper. Column headings
have been added, and the original order of columns slightly rearranged to make
for easier comprehension. Abbreviations have been retained as per the original
document, preserving some of the otherwise unseen flavor. The abbreviation "RWC"
is my idea, a contraction of "R. Wurlitzer Co.," which I have used
in order to conserve space.
Common abbreviations used throughout the lists are:
- RC = Roll Changer. A number preceding it indicates
the total number of music rolls the revolver carriage mechanism can hold,
usually six.
- Mah. = Mahogany.
- Driftwd. = Driftwood style finish, oak case.
- GO = Golden Oak case and finish.
- SG or S.G. = Silver-Grey (Wurlitzer's spelling), which
was a popular finish applied to rift-grain oak cases, whereby the pores
of the wood are filled with a silver-gray glazing compound, imparting an
elegant silver colored cast to the darkly stained (usually black) overall
color of the wood.
- Wht. = White.
- CPO = Concert PianOrchestra.
- MPO = Mandolin PianOrchestra.
Serial Numbers
The Philipps serial number was assigned by Philipps during the manufacture
of the machine, while Wurlitzer only assigned its own unique number, at least
in the case of PianOrchestras, when it installed its own brand of piano and/or
many of the other components, such as pipes and trapwork. This is especially
so in later years, probably beginning about 1910, when Wurlitzer began importing
unit chassis assemblies with only the main and essential components installed,
and with no furniture case. Wurlitzer then completed the machine by building
the exterior furniture case and installing anything not already part of the
basic imported chassis assembly. Thus, many PianOrchestras bear both a Philipps
chassis number and a Wurlitzer serial number, or only a Wurlitzer number, with
no apparent serial number reference to Philipps at all.
In the case of the Paganini style machines, it is not known to what extent
Wurlitzer "improved" the imported product, if they did so at all, since only
one imported Wurlitzer Paganini, a style 3, is known to exist, and it is a pure
Philipps machine. Only two Paganini's in the shipping list indicate a Wurlitzer
serial number, but there is currently no way for me to know why. One of those
machines is a Paganini style 1 with keyboard. That this particular instrument
is shown as "repaired," perhaps taken in on trade and then put up for resale,
may be the reason for branding it with a Wurlitzer serial number. Philipps made
many keyboard style Paganini instruments well into the late 1920s, but other
than this single Wurlitzer reference, no other Wurlitzer literature or documents
I know of specifically mention or illustrate Philipps keyboard style Paganini
violin pianos.
Shipping
Wurlitzer advertised itself as being in most major cities. For instance,
in Los Angeles, the Wurlitzer Company offices and showroom were apparently operated
by a corporation using the legal name of "The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company of California."
There may have been many similar Wurlitzer subsidiary companies, each incorporated
in the state in which it operated, each essentially independent, but under the
aegis of the parent company at the same time. One of the columns in the original
shipping lists contains an entry "R. Wurlitzer Co.," abbreviated as "RWC" in
the reproduced lists, in order to conserve space. For the PianOrchestra, "R.
Wurlitzer Co." is entered for the majority of the PianOrchestras shipped, while
for the Paganini type machines it is used in each and every entry. That this
"R. Wurlitzer Company" entry exists at all suggests that who ever made up the
list recognized that machines could conceivably be shipped to someone other
than a Wurlitzer subsidiary, such as an independent dealer, or maybe even a
customer's business location.
Just because a particular machine is on one of the shipping lists does not
mean that it was new, or that it was being shipped from the Wurlitzer factory
for the first time. Wurlitzer often advertised rebuilt machines at special clearance,
low prices. When you see a low serial number, one less than 2000, especially
in the last years of shipping activity, it suggests the probability that the
machine was taken in on trade, rehabbed and then resold, only to be shipped
out again.
