Antique Musical Instruments/William Frank Cornet

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Expert: - 9/26/2007


Question
I recently purchased a raw brass William Frank cornet and it semms to be a beauty and very precision engineered. I read your answer on the Frank tenor sax. Another knowledgeable person told me that Schilke bought Frank's tooling equipment when he started making trumpets. Any other information on the Frank company?

Answer
William Frank (b. 1876 Allentown, PA -  1932 Chicago) French horn in the Chicago Symphony from 1904 til his death.  

He first worked for Holton and in 1910 established his own business in Chicago. At one time, he had a work force of 32.  He used American Prep and Belmore as tradenames.

It appears that Frank and Holton shared design configurations.  He also made some instruments for Lyon & Healy.

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Kenton Scott

Expertise

Please note: My area is BRASS instruments, not other wind, string or percussion instruments. I will provide information on antique, obscure and out of production BRASS instruments. 1) Please don't ask for evaluations, I'll not provide them on this site. 2) I am often asked very similar questions, so I'd invite you to first check on Horn-u-Copia.net. Much of the information I have garnered about this topic, I have posted on this WEB site.

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I perform in several historical bands, have informally researched the area, repair brass instruments, and operate a Forum dedicated to the topic at http://horn-u-copia.net

Education/Credentials
B.S. Ed, M.S.

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