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Revision as of 17:57, 2 September 2007
Heintzman & Co. Ltd was a celebrated Canadian piano manufacturer, based in the Toronto area, whose instruments retain a reputation for quality of workmanship and fineness of tone.
The firm was incorporated in 1866 in Toronto by Theodore August Heintzman, who was born in Berlin, 19 May 1817, and who emigrated to Canada in 1860, following a brief residence in New York. The story that Heintzman worked in the same Berlin piano factory as Henry E. Steinway, who went on to found Steinway & Sons, is unconfirmed, but is typical of comparisons that were often later made between the instruments that their two firms produced.
Following his arrival in Toronto, Heintzman began to produce pianos from his residence (he is said to have worked initially from his kitchen) and then went on to open his first factory at 23 Duke St. By May 1868 Heintzman had relocated operations to 105 King St W and was soon turning out more than 60 pianos a year. By 1873 the company had moved to 115-17 King St W where there was space for a factory, offices, and sales rooms.
The organisation continued to grow throughout the 1870s, and by 1879 had turned out its thousandth instrument. By 1884 the number of pianos completed reached nearly 2000, and when in 1888 a new factory was added to the operation, production began to climb steeply.
Unlike some piano manufacturers of the time, Heintzman always aimed to produce high-quality, rather than affordable instruments, and it was on the basis of this reputation that the firm carried their success into the twentieth century. Heintzman suffered considerably during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but continued to manufacture pianos in the decades that followed, reaching production of 5000 instruments in 1967.
Heintzman had opened an additional factory in Hanover, Ontario in 1962, and following a merger in 1978 with the Sherlock-Manning Piano Co, relocated their head offices there as Heintzman Ltd. The new company continued to produce pianos under both names, with the Heintzman grand piano the top line.
In January 1981 Heintzman Ltd was sold by the family to Sklar-Peppler Inc. of Hanover, Ontario, and was operated by Sklar-Peppler as a subsidiary under the Heintzman Ltd name; it redesigned, rescaled and re-engineered both upright and grand pianos, and by 1985 750 uprights and 40-50 grands were produced annually. Pianos of this era are popularly considered to be of substatially lower quality than earlier instruments.
In 1986 The Music Stand, an Oakville-based franchise music retail chain, purchased the Heintzman Ltd. patents and trademarks from Sklar-Peppler, as well as the remaining inventory, which it marketed. In 1990 a Federal Court judge ruled that The Music Stand could not place the Heintzman nameplate on pianos built in South Korea and the USA, which it imported for sale in Canada.
A company operating from Beijing, China is now producing pianos under the Heintzman name, but is not connected to the oringinal Heintzman & Co. According to the firm's website, it is owned by 'Chinese and Canadian shareholders' and uses equipment purchased from the original Heintzman firm.