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Images from The Alan G. Bates Harmonica
Collection
Ĉolina (chord harmonica) by Lewis Zwahlen, New York
City, ca. 1831
NMM 9591. Ĉolina (chord harmonica) by Lewis Zwahlen, New York City, ca. 1831. This unpretentious-looking little instrument, on which one can play chords in G, D, and A, is one of the earliest harmonicas known to survive. There are sixteen brass reeds, one reed per hole, with a wood casing on the top and the reed plate exposed below. The few other surviving examples were made in Europe and none to our knowledge has an original cardboard box, which is lined, in this instance, with blue silk and carries the label, Sold at The Depository of the Arts, Bourne's, 359 Broadway, New-York. A second cardboard flip-top box (not shown) fits over the first box and has a red shoestring tie. Alan G. Bates Collection, 2000.
The reed plate is mounted on a walnut "comb" cut with grooves that allow air to enter each of the reed chambers.
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National Music Museum
The University of South Dakota
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069
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