The collector: Rev Doug Dawson, Pastor of Open Arms, Tillonsburg, Ontario, Canada.

The collection: Harmonicas

The story behind the collection...

About twenty years ago a retiring pastor gave me his old Hohner Sextet six sided harmonica. I played around with it for a bit and a year or so later he gave me a new Hohner Comet. I didn't do much with them for years but eventually I started to play them. About ten years ago I came across some web sites that featured harmonica collections and I was intrigued. The shapes, colours and sizes fascinated me. I started looking around at antique stores and flea markets and found a few interesting harmonicas.

The harmonica is an amazing musical instrument. There are more of them out there than any other musical instrument ever produced. Hohner alone has made over one billion. They are easy to carry in your pocket and can be pulled out and played almost anywhere. The sheer variety of models is a joy to me as a collector.

I have been seriously collecting for about ten years and now have approximately 900 in my collection.

I have been blessed to find some truly rare pieces over the years. I have acquired harmonicas from Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, England and many other countries. When it comes to collecting I am a little tenacious. If I find one I really want then I find some way to surpass language and culture barriers to add it to my collection. This has led to finding many friends in different countries who love to help me collect.

Displaying 900 harmonicas is a challenge. At the moment I have about 500 displayed. I have a four foot by three foot five drawer architects metal cabinet that holds nearly 400 harmonicas. I also have two smaller wooden cabinets that hold another 100. I also have some vintage Hohner cabinets and counter top displays that are full of harmonicas. The ones that aren't so special and many of the boxes are stored in plastic tubs. I have displayed some of my harmonicas in local museums and arts centers as well.

Anything with horns, bells, whistles or an unusual shape sure gets my attention. One of my favourite finds was one I was told didn't exist. It is called a "Solo" ans was made by the Christian Weiss harmonica company in Germany in 1904. There was a patent ink drawing of this harmonica on a website but the accompanying statement indicated that it was never produced. I discovered this harmonica on a Swedish website and managed to buy it. It is unique in that it has eight brass horns with the reed in the horn rather than in the body of the harmonica. Each horn has a numbered removable reed. It is the only complete one that I have ever seen.

Amongst my favourites is a cane harmonica. These were made from the 1880s to the 1920s. The playable harmonica is built into the handle of the cane. Not too many of these survived.

The harmonicas that I enjoy the most are what I call "Luxe" harmonicas. These were enameled with many odd colour combinations, mainly in the 1930s. Hohner produced at least 16 different models in a variety of colour combinations for the Chicago World Fair in 1933. They went by the name of Echo-Luxe and the original boxes have "Century of Progress" on the labels. Other companies in Germany and Argentina followed suit and now I have over 150 different models of these in my collection.

Other favourites are a Babe's Musical Bat miniature harmonica that was produced for games three and four of the 1927 pennant series between the New York Yankees and the Pittsburg Pirates. It was sold as a souvenir to fans at the Yankee Stadium. It's in the shape of a baseball bat. It is 4" long and plays ten notes. I also have numerous boomerang shaped harmonicas that were made for the Australian market and sold through Albert's Music stores.

There are two that I would dearly love to add to my collection. One was made by Willhelm Thie in Austria in the late 1880s. The cover plates are hand carved ivory and they are absolutely beautiful. I have only seen one but I am sure there must be others out there somewhere. The other is a 1925 Hohner Echophone. It is a white tremolo double sided harmonica with gold and black inscriptions. There is one at the Harmonica Museum in Trossingen, Germany and it is truly a work of art.

You can view a few of my harmonicas at my Flickr page.

A great book that was published to celebrate Hohner's 150th anniversay is "Hohner: The Living Legend". Great history and many beautiful photographs of some of the 20,000 harmonicas housed in the Harmonica Museum in Trossingen, Germany.

Images © Doug Dawson and used with his kind permission.