Silvertone Orgamonica and Vintage Italians Update
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In earlier postings on two Silvertone Orgamonica models (34 and 25 key) I have identified them as Italian instruments.
I have now discovered that I was mistaken. These models were manufactured in the United States by Silvertone (earlier Harmony), a subsidiary of Sears Roebuck & Company. I knew that Sears had used the “Silvertone” brand label but only recently have confirmed that the Orgamonica label refers to one and the same manufacturer. The confirming evidence shows that the Silvertone Orgamonicas are to be dated earlier than I suspected. They are early 1960s instruments. Here are images from (1) a January 1965 Silvertone brochure and (2) the 1966 Sears Christmas Wishbook.
This finding has significant further implications for the dating of the generation of vintage Italian melodicas that we have been discussing in the forum. I have lumped these Italian models together on account of how similar they are to one another in design and construction, and I have guessed at a late 1960s through 1970s time frame. My guess has been late 1960s or 1970s. The 34 key Orgamonica is clearly a poor man’s imitation of the 1958 Italian La Clavietta. This should be clear to anyone who has, as I have, worked on these instruments, taken them apart and made comparisons.
But close examination and comparisons between a variety of vintage small Italian melodicas(Chordiana, Pianino, etc.) and the 25 key Orgamonica (Sears listing mistakenly says 26 key) show that the design and materials are remarkably similar (except for the location of the mouthpiece hole on the Orgamonica), so similar as to suggest common origin, shared parts and/or imitation. But the small Orgamonica is inferior in sound and construction to the Italians, as the big Orgamonica is to the Clavietta. These considerations and the history of Sears-Silvertone’s marketing of inexpensive imitations of musical instruments (notably, ukuleles) seems to me to inescapably lead to the conclusion that the small Orgamonica is an imitation of the small Italians. It’s possible that some of its parts were imported from Italy, reeds perhaps and more.
A further implication is that the small Italian vintage melodicas should be dated as early 1960s, which also helps to explain why the soft materials of these models have broken down and crumbled, rendering most unplayable without some refurbishment. This seems to me to be the most significant “finding.”
Thanks. Here’s a little more.
I was concerned after posting the above that the Silvertone Orgamonicas might have been imported from Italy. I’m still not certain, but I did find the following posted at the Ukulele Hall of Fame in response to a question about where the inquirer’s vintage Harmony ukulele was made: “Your ukulele was made by The Harmony Company of Chicago Illinois. Harmony was owned by Sears, and manufactured many instruments for Sears under the Supertone (and later, Silvertone) brand names.”
The Harmony Company, founded in 1892 was purchased by Sears Roebuck in 1916. That’s the same year in which Sears introduced the Silvertone brand, which started out including phonographs and electronics, later adding musical instruments. Silvertone continued through 1972, and Samick (Korea) purchased the rights to the name, under which it started selling guitars.
Harmony was an actual musical instrument manufacturing company; Silvertone was just a brand name. Harmony did make the ukuleles. Harmony manufacturing continued until 1975. It may be that the Orgamonicas were imported to be sold under the Silvertone brand name.
In any case, the Silvertone Orgamonicas occupy an interesting spot in the history of Italian melodicas, whether they were actually made in italy or not.
Aw shucks. In reviewing earlier posts, I’m reminded that the Silvertone Organica 34 also appeared as the Implisonic Claviata, which was marketed by Miazzi, an Italian company. To complicate matters further, Miazzi didn’t make its own instruments. So the Silvertone Orgamonicas must have been imported to the U.S. after all from Italy. Sorry for posting out loud. But this doesn’t change the implications for dating this generation of Italian melodicas. Miazzi also marketed small models that are familiar under other brand or model names such as Chordiana.
The small Orgamonica appears in the big Sears 1964 Fall-Winter 1964 catalog. I’ve been searching through Sears, JC Penney’s and Montgomery Ward catalogs from the 1960s find no earlier appearance. The 1965 Penny Christmas Book has the first Hohner Piano 26 (HM-926). It’s interesting that the Orgamonicas are referred to by Sears as keyboard harmonicas.
Greetings all.
I stumbled across this topic and liked the looks of the 25 key Orgamonica and did a search and found one in excellent condition from Goodwill in Oregon.
It sounds good, everything is about 1 cent sharp so it’s pretty much in tune with itself. It does leak some and I run out of air playing it and the high G# (A flat) is slow to respond but all the other keys work great.
I was wondering if anyone has advice about what to watch out for when opening the melodica up. I can see the padding at the front of the keys is dried out and flaky, I’m assuming felt is a good replacement for that. But as for the gasket, where do you get that?This is my first post and I don’t see a link for uploading photos.
One thing I noticed from Alan’s post with the sears catalogue is that in the catalogue it’s called a ‘keyboard harmonica’, the name Orgamonica only seems to be on the music books.
Hi, Steven.
Unless you have a pretty good idea what you’re doing, I would advise against taking your Orgamonica apart. It’s likely to be damaged in the process and then be challenged getting it reassembled. Many vintage melodicas and almost all recent models are pretty easy to work on, but not so the Orgamonica. In general, if a vintage melodica has wooden parts, it’s risky to work on.
Hi Alan
I figured if it didn’t work right there wasn’t any point in having it so I went ahead and opened it. The 25 key Orgamonica doesn’t have any wooden parts, it’s all plastique except for the springs and an aluminum plate inside the bottom of the case.
It took a bit of wiggling the keyboard back and forth to get it to come out but I discovered the thing that makes the air tight seal is just the downward tension from the screws.
I removed the gasket (it was a cloth/fosm hybrid… velour?) and replaced it with a gasket I made from a piece of foam I had gotten years ago in a craft shop. I made the base of the gasket much wider than the original to increase the odds of a good seal.
The padding under the front of the keys was degraded so I took it off and replaced it with the gasket I removed from the bottom.
The only thing that didn’t go back correctly is I couldn’t get the extremely short screws to engage with their corresponding ferrules with the fiber washers on them. I took the washers off of 4 screws and have one with the washer and they’re all seated well and the Orgamonica is 95% air tight (a major improvement from when I got it).
The last thing I did was get the high A flat reed to respond as quickly as the other notes around it by flexing it down closer to the reed plate.Anyway… I now have a perfectly good Orgamonica that sounds pretty good to me.
I have photos of all of this if someone can tell me how to upload them.
Greetings again..
An update on my Silvertone Orgamonica.
I’ve replaced the annoyingly badly designed mouthpiece with a hose.
It’s much easier to hold and play.
I got a standard melodica hose from Amazon and cut an 1/8″ thick piece of craft foam to fit the mouthpiece opening. Then I cut a hole for the mouthpiece to go through.
Piece o’cake, barely an inconvenience. Now the melodica is easier to hold and play (my left hand thumb was getting in the way of my playing hand with the old mouthpiece.
The hose connection is airtight and can be easily removed for airing out.Possibly these photo links will work
Nice work, Steven, finding a somewhat workable work-around for the ridiculous mouthpiece placement on this model.
Thanks Alan
I’m assuming you could see the photos so I’ll put a link for my original work here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/qTAp4YLVQFZomJTu5
These show the original deteriorating gasket and my home made replacement. There’s so much room inside the case and the gasket seals to t case with the pressure from the screws, for that reason I made my gasket wider than the original just to make sure I’d get a good seal. The cutout in the gasket is for clearance for the drain mechanism.
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