Welmar Serial Nos.

 

Year	Serial No.	Year	Serial No.
1925	13000	1970	70000
1930	16500	1972	72000
1935	20000	1974	74000
1938	21600	1976	76000
1940	23500	1978	78000
1946	46000	1980	80000
1948	48000	1982	82000
1950	50000	1984	84000
1952	52000	1986	86000
1954	54000	1988	107140
1956	56000	1990	107935
1958	58000	1992	108420
1960	60000	1994	109205
1962	62000	1996	109990
1964	64000	1998	110590
1966	66000	2000	110940
1968	68000	2002	111240

These serial numbers can be used only as a reference point.
An Exact date does not make a material difference to an assessment of a piano - a year or so out 120 years ago really is neither here more there.

The idea that 100% accuracy for all piano makers over a century ago is an interesting thought - but considering that all record keeping would be hand-written and kept in large ledger books, inaccuracies are likely. These records will be as reliable as the clerks whose job it was to keep them. The digital age of barcodes and scanned labels was still in the realm of science fiction. So we have to be content with our best guess numbers.

Back to the Piano Atlas

Welmar: Short History

Memoirs of an Apprentice Piano Tuner

At the start of my apprenticeship - back in 1973, pianos were still being made in the UK. In those early days I was bewildered by the sheer number of piano names. When the older apprentices talked about these obscure and odd-sounding names, it was almost like listening to a foreign language. Strange how quickly one makes sense of these things. Very soon I was spouting the same in-house piano-speak and relishing the idea of confusing any unfortunate outsider in ear shot.

There was an unofficial rating system of the pianos in the shop - rated by the accumulated experience of young apprentices! From memory, the order from the preferred to the unfavoured was something like: Welmar,  Knight, Kemble, Monnington & Weston, Eavestaffe, Barrett & Robinson, Zender, Bentley. (This order might be disputed by others.)  

I do not remember seeing new European pianos in the shop other than the occasional Zimmerman - but down in the workshop among the apprentices, these were not liked at all. 

The nearest piano factory to where I lived was Bentley's at Stroud. We occasionally passed it while en route to Cheltenham on the A46 but because the Bentley pianos of the 70s were never well thought of, their factory at Woodchester did not particularly capture my interest.

Our workshop was beneath the grand Georgian streets of Bath. We sometimes referred to it as the crypt. The workshop itself had plenty of daylight - about half the area of roof/ceiling was of glass which was likely to leak when the weather was bad. On summer afternoons, while still working, we would gently cook in the sun's heat which was magnified through the glass.

The warehouse/store next to the workshop had no natural light at all and was poorly lit, dusty and full of old pianos in for storage or repair. The air was thick with the smell of bone glue, piano felt and dust - a unique blend of aromas which belongs only in piano workshops.

On my very first day, I was given a job cleaning action parts. The foreman was an older local guy who talked with the broadest Somerset accent I'd ever heard. He asked me a question which even in my extreme effort to be polite I could not decipher, so I had to say "Pardon?" Clearly annoyed, he looked at me suspiciously and said very slowly and deliberately, "So you think you've got good ears then?" I gave the only answer a young boy who wanted to be a piano tuner could give: "Yes!"  

© Steve Burden
pianology

Tuner's Journal

Welmar Pianos

The story of the Welmar piano begins at the end of the first world war. The hardships of the post-war economy gave the piano trade an uphill struggle as it sought to re-establish sales and profitability. Whelpdale and Maxwell began business in 1876 importing Bluthner pianos from Germany and until the war, they had built a strong business on the qualities of the Bluthner pianos. In 1919, the public were now unhappy about buying German pianos, and Whelpdale & Maxwell had to find an alternative source of income until the mood against German pianos had softened.

Cremona Ltd. of Camberwell, London, made pianos for the trade and used names like Squire & Longson, Ronson and Paul Newman. In 1919 Whelpdale & Maxwell commissioned Cremona Ltd to make pianos using the trade name Welmar.

The Cremona team continued to develop and improve their pianos - particularly the metal frame and the soundboard. But in 1929, disaster hit when the factory was burnt down. The company never recovered from the catastrophy and closed the business in 1934.

Whelpdale Maxwell & Codd (as it now was), managed to acquire the Cremona designs, jigs and templates and began making Cremona-designed pianos but using the Welmar name at a new factory at Clapham Park Road. 

Production continued at Clapham until 2001, when, at an extremely difficult time for the piano trade, all was moved for a short time, to Stroud in Gloucestershire.

The Welmar piano has always been appreciated by serious piano players and students. They were built with the Bluthner tone in mind, by craftsmen devoted to the art of piano-building. Welmar pianos are almost universally admired by piano tuners! And, as they are generally hard to please - this is no small achievement.

Welmar Serial Nos.

Directory of Piano Makers

© Steve Burden