Mouth-Organs Are Played The World Over

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 30, 6 January 1939, Page 5

Mouth-Organs Are Played The World Over

(‘Record’s" Christchurch Reporter.) WH thought we were smart in Canterbury when we discovered that mouth-crgan bands flourished everywhere. We had a surprise when, for the opening of the Banks Peninsula Cruising Club, a mouthorgan band played the National Anthem while the flag was going top-mast. But we certainly got a shock when we heard the boys ex haling and inhaling the reeds in jazz time while presenting the national hymn. But this is nothing. Britain spent nearly £250,000 during 1938 on wmouth-organs. Nearly 3,000,000 "harmonicas," from little one-octave affairs an inch long to big bass instruments over a foot in length, have heen sold during the last 12 months. In Germany the mouth-organ boom started 10 years ago. Britain took it up a little later and, as usual, New Zealand came to light, quite a few years afterwards. The most expensive harmonica, we are told, was produced for the President of Cuba. it had plates of solid gold and cost over. £100 to make. ‘