Germany: Titanic organ

Titanic-Untergang mythos “Titanic-Orgel” Deutsches Musikautomaten-Museum Bruchsal

The epic sinking of the Titanic (represented by) the Titanic Organ at the Automatic Instrument Museum, Bruchsal.

Most are familiar with the tragedy of the sinking of the luxury liner, Titanic. It hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank, killing many, many people. One cannot over-emphasize the “luxury” descriptor. One symbol of this opulence was the plan to include a pipe organ in one of the ship’s salons. A sister ship the Britanic likewise was to have a “Welte Philharmonic Organ” installed. Using the most cut-edge technology of the day these instruments made the utmost of a limited number of pipes and included an automatic playing mechanism. The instrument for the Titanic was not installed before the first voyage. Ultimately the instrument made its way to the DMM in Bruchsal, Germany. Apporximately 100 years after the Titanic sank, the museum held festivities that featured the instrument that was spared. These several covers include various stamps and cachets, but the same pictorial cancel. The cancel includes information about the event and an image of the organ along with the postal code for Bruchsal.

Above is a stamp featuring a honey bee on a flower, meant to promote the need to protect pollinators. This stamp was issued in 2010, so I do not have a catalog number, as my catalog goes up to 2009 only.

At the bottom is a computer-generated postage label. The image on the label shows the Post Tower in Bonn, Germany.

Below a stamp in the “Famous Women” series that ran 1987-2004. This one shows Hildegard Knef, an actress (Scott 2186). All three are denominated 55c, the rate for the period, Germany having completed the transition to the Euro currency.

Finally at the bottom is a picture of the organ in its museum setting.

 

Germany: Reger

Germany issued this stamp honoring Max Reger on May 2, 1991, the 75th anniversary of the composer's death. The stamp (Scott 1645) includes an image of the composer and a collection of organ pipes in the rear. I blogged the stamp itself here. I have seen this first day cover in several places, so I know it's fairly common. The cachet features the same image of Reger, plus some organ pipes. The background in this case though is manuscript writing for organ. I have several works by Reger but I don't know them well-enough to identify the piece of music shown. The postmark also includes pipes and some music notation. It's a nice three-in-one combination of stamp, cancel, and cachet.

DDR: Musical Instrument Museum

This cover includes two stamps from the former German Democratic Republic (Deutsch Democratische Republik, DDR). They are from a set of 4 stamps issued in 1979 showing various important instruments in the Musical Instrument Museum in Leipzig. The present stamps show a lira da gamba and a German tenor trumpet. But on the cover, the organ-interest items are not the stamps, but the postmark and cachet. Included in these two black-toned images are two different organs in the museum.  I was not able to find a list of holdings at the museum. The organ in the postmark thus remains a mystery. The cachet, we are told, shows an Italian positiv from the 1500's. The stamps (Scott 2031 and 2034) and the postmark include 1979 dates. The museum began as a private endeavor in 1886. It was absorbed by the University of Leipzig in 1929 and has been under their aegis since.

Hinners and Albertsen (USA)

I'm not certain my source for this cover.  It's an advertising cover or otherwise business cover from the Hinners & Albertsen firm in Illinois (USA). It is addressed to a professor at the American School in Marsovan, Turkey. The envelope had pre-printed postage in the amount of 2c. Two stamps were added to that to get up to the cost of sending a letter to Turkey. Sadly one of those stamps is now missing. The postmark on front indicates March 7, but I cannot decipher the year. There is an additional postmark on the reverse, perhaps made in Turkey which seems to read 1891.

This Washington stamped envelope is one of two types. Scott designates them as U70 and U71. Mine is U71. It is the more common and less valuable version on oriental buff-colored paper (U313). Since this envelope was produced beginning in 1887, it's entirely possible that it was used for mailing in 1891. Hinners would have purchased a number of these from the post office and then had their business information added by a local printer.

Hinners and Albertsen existed in Pekin,  IL 1898-1902. Predecessor and successor firms in the same town can be found.

The American School in Marsovan (or Merzifon) was a high school, college and seminary, as well as an orphanage and hospital, located in the Rum Province of the Ottoman Empire. It existed in Turkey 1886-1924. It was destroyed by the Aermenian Geneocide of 1915 and further crippled in its mission by World War 1. It ultimately moved to Greece.

J J Manissadjian is mentioned in this catalog of the college as teaching Natural Sciences. I would have guessed "music" but another person is named as faculty in that area. He is listed as "secretary and librarian" in the faculty list, perhaps serving as the point of contact for the faculty as a group. He emigrated to the US after the collapse f the Ottoman Empire. He catalogued bulbous plants and butterflies and other insects. Two plant species are named after him.

It is the cachet of this cover that is remarkable for this blog. It shows a Hinners instrument of one manual and pedal. The facade pipes are decorated. It looks just as one might imagine a very small instrument for a struggling school in Turkey having in its music department.

Without knowing details, one can imagine the faculty inquiring of the Hinners firm about installing a reed or pipe organ at the school as part of their music department. The envelope may have contained the reply.