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Continuing our look at Carl Geyer and his horns, as noted in part I he had his own shop running by 1918. At that point he still was making double horns on the Schmidt design, with the piston valve for the thumb valve, but he was experimenting.
A quick look at Geyer serial numbers
Jumping ahead for a moment, Geyer did have a system for serial numbers. As related by Tom Bacon in his Horn Planet website,
Over his lifetime, he made about 1,400 horns, but never did he complete more than one on the same day. It wasn’t until the day my horn was finished that I noticed Mr. Geyer’s interesting way of numbering his instruments. He finished work on my horn on April 9, 1963. The inscription on the bell was:
Carl Geyer
Chicago
4963
I know from private correspondence that a Geyer style Geyer double horn exists with the serial number 223. The system would suggest that it was completed in February of 1923. Where this fits into the experiments that developed the design is unclear, but for anyone with an early Geyer double out there, you should give that serial number a look, it could help pin down the year that the design was perfected.
UPDATE: Geyer however did not consistently follow this system. Please see this article for more.
Geyer looks back in 1972
According to a July 12, 1972, interview included in a 1975 thesis by Gary Gardner Fladmoe “The Contributions to Brass Instrument Manufacturing on Vincent Bach, Carl Geyer and Reynold Schilke” (major hat tip to Jonathan Ring for posting excerpts on the Horn People group!), Geyer changed the design of his double horn “by the mid-1920s.” Fladmore summarized their conversation as follows.
Geyer’s design was unusual in that he located the change valve after the main valve section instead of in its customary position ahead of the valve section. The valve was operated by the thumb by means of a long rod which connected the thumb key to the valve by bridging the main valve section. Geyer believed the design offered two advantages over the traditional placement of the change valve. Placing the valve after the main valve section simplified the overall design of the horn by eliminating some of the coiling of the smaller tubing. Geyer also believed that the design made the instrument less crowded in the area ahead of the valve section and provide the player with increased leverage in the operation of the change valve.
He then turned to the issue of the Knopf horn being of the same design.
At about the same time that Geyer placed this design on the market, Knopf, a German manufacturer introduced a horn of almost identical design. Geyer maintained that Wunderlich, who had observed Geyer working on the design while he was still at Wunderlich, had taken the idea to Knopf upon a trip to his native Germany.
So, the roots of the design date to before World War I. But…
Who had the patent?
Continuing in the Fladmoe thesis,
Geyer applied for a patent on the design, but probably because the Knopf instrument was in production, calling Geyer’s claim on the design into question, the patent was not granted. … Instead of seeking patents, Geyer’s approach was to indicate that he had applied for a patent on the new design.
In short, the design was not patented by Geyer or Knopf. As Jonathan Ring commented in Horn People, “Many of the large German firms like Kruspe, Alexander, and Schmidt took out patents on their designs for a period of time. I find it interesting that Knopf did not patent the design in question, possibly because it was actually Geyer who came up with it as he suggests in the thesis. I’m not sure we will ever actually know the answer for sure.”
Introducing Carl Geyer
As mentioned in part I, Milan Yancich spent many hours with Geyer in the years during and after WWII. He offers the following introduction.
Geyer was a man of slight build, lean and with no trace of fat on his body. He was physically powerful. There were times when he asked me to take over a task in his workshop. He seemed to be able to work effortlessly at a job that I strained and quickly tired from in the same endeavor. His formula for good health was eating oatmeal every morning for breakfast and it had to be prepared a certain way. … I once asked him why he thought oatmeal was good for one’s health. He came up with the old line that “Horses are strong because they eat oats.”
One thing you might wonder at this point is did Geyer play horn? According to Yancich,
He learned to play some trumpet and he was able to get a few sounds out of a horn; it was his tradition to always play the first few notes on a newly made horn. I had the privilege of testing many of the new horns that he manufactured.
In those days of World War II I never missed the opportunity to visit him when I came into Chicago from Ft. Sheridan [where Yancich was stationed]. It was to be the beginning of a long and meaningful friendship. … Despite some political differences, Carl and I trusted each other about many things. Several years after the war was over, and I had become a member of the Chicago Symphony, his workshop became like a haven, a refuge, my second home.
We will continue that story when the series returns.
