Blasius and Sons: Thomas Edison’s preferred high-quality piano
Charles Blasius was born in Cologne, Germany, and came to the United States when he was 25 years old.
After working for several other piano makers, he established his company in 1855 under the name Blasius Brothers in Philadelphia at 1006 Chestnut Street. This was a Piano Alley, so to speak, with the Chickering and Sons, Decker Brothers, and Steinway stores on the same street.
In 1857, he parted ways with his brothers as business partners, and Charles changed the firm’s name to Blasius and Sons, with the admission of his two sons Levi and Oscar as partners.
In 1887, Blasius took control of the Charles Albrecht Piano Company, which was one of the oldest piano manufacturers in the United States. Along with the Albrecht name, Blasius & Sons also built pianos under the “Regent” brand as an affordable alternative to their more expensive Blasius brand.
It is always good business practice to offer the customer multiple options.
Due to their high cost when new, Blasius pianos were never built on a large scale like many other American piano makers.
Thomas Edison highly appreciated and supported the Blasius piano, and used it in his experiments. He was conducting an experiment with the piano and the phonograph. Here’s a letter Edison wrote to Blasius in December 1894.
“Dear Sirs,
We are still experimenting with your piano in relation to the phonograph. We are still not satisfied with the phonographic reproduction, but the piano itself is very good. We will continue until we have reproduced the original with all its tonal richness.
Sincerely,
Thomas Edison “
I can tell you as a piano technician that Edison probably failed to reproduce the “richness of tone” of the piano with the phonograph.
Charles Blasius died in 1894, and the company was sold to Preston Rice, and Philip Wuest, owners of the Rice-Wuest piano company,
Around 1916, having trouble keeping up with orders and outgrowing their Philadelphia building, they took on the task of moving to a larger building in Woodbury, New Jersey, relocating more than 400 employees and their families.
Woodbury, NJ, offered “no tax for five years” to encourage businesses to move there. Meanwhile, they began leasing the Philadelphia building to various companies.
By 1919 (the end of World War I), the company was having financial problems filing for dissolution in New Jersey. They returned to the smallest building in Philadelphia and tried to keep the business running, but they closed in 1925.
Note:
The historic Philadelphia building was destroyed in 1970. The Woodbury, NJ building caught fire due to a disgruntled employee, who even shut off the sprinkler system before starting one of the worst fires in New Jersey history.