Hello there, My name is David and I play harmonica. I do session work and recently acquired a harmonica from a client. Its a M. Hohner Chromatica. It’s in the original box and the lady said it was from around the 30s or 40s. It has No261 on the harmonica and the box. Can anyone tell me about it?
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She also gave me a Hohner tremolo quadruple harmonica. I know nothing about that one either. Help!
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@davidmcmillan welcome to the forum my friend!
@Boaz_Kim_Music might be able to shed some light here. Also would be cool if you post a photo?
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Hey thanks for the tag. @davidmcmillan , yes please post some photos especially of the Hohner quadruple. Over the years Hohner had made several versions, usually they don’t sell for too much but that always depends on the buyer. The quad harmonica will have basically 4 tremolo harmonicas in 4 different keys. You flip to another to sometimes get the appropriate chord especially if you’re playing in a chordal style, or simply to get the necessary melodic note that falls outside of the diatonic key (Needing an F# note but it isn’t in the C major scale that the tremolo in C has.)
The Hohner Chromatica 261 is commonly categorized in the old, “Polyphonia,” line. Usually they are octave tuned from A to nearly a full 3 octaves up in a chromatic scale to a G. I have restored more than several of these polyphonias, but occasionally there were different forms that Hohner made with the same model numbers that were made. Specifically with the 261, I worked on one that was a tremolo version, factory made. I enjoy these polyphonia harmonicas a lot!
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