Hohner Morino 374

[the boxman]

i saw a video of and Excellsior accordion on YouTube and it looked very similar to the Morino 374, evenhad the same oval coupler switches, is the morino just rebadged Excellsiors? By going down the excelsior  route could you get the same accordion (inside) without the Hohner price tag.

 

[JerryPH]

Excelsiors are Italian, Morinos are German, but apparently there was a time that Excelsior built accordions for Hohner. Not the same, but there is a period where they were connected quite closely.

 

[debra]

i saw a video of and Excellsior accordion on YouTube and it looked very similar to the Morino 374, evenhad the same oval coupler switches, is the morino just rebadged Excellsiors? By going down the excelsior  route could you get the same accordion (inside) without the Hohner price tag.

I visited the Frankfurter Musikmesse 2 decades ago, right at the end of the era when Excelsior was building the Hohner Morino series. (They built all Morino N and S accordions, including also the button N and S Artiste series.) At that time Hohner had a large accordion stand (whereas nowadays they have mostly disappeared, at least from the pavilion with the accordion makers) and Excelsior had its separate stand. The corresponding, virtually identical, models could be tried and I did. These instruments look, feel and play pretty much the same... but they do not sound the same. Something must be different (maybe reed blocks, very likely reeds) that causes these basically identically constructed instruments to not sound the same. The Morino sounds like... eh well, a Morino, and the Excelsior sounds like a typical nice Italian accordion with good reeds and cassotto.

So the answer is that the Morino is not a "rebadged" Excelsior but it was built by Excelsior and then sold by Hohner for a premium price (but not any more today on the used market).

Around 2000 Pigini took over Excelsior, including the Hohner premium models, but they did something different which causes the Morino accordions built by Pigini to sound more like a Pigini than a Morino. (That's a pretty good sound by the way, it's just dfifferent.)

 

[Decbox]

Hi. I had one of the Excelsior built Morinos. Bought it about 23? years ago from an Excelsior dealer so I should have known but this was in the pre internet days. Nice accordion Double Cassotto with Cagnoni reeds.

 

[debra]

Hi.  I had one of the Excelsior built Morinos.   Bought it about 23? years ago from an Excelsior dealer so I should have known but this was in the pre internet days.   Nice accordion Double Cassotto with Cagnoni reeds.

Yep, that's one from the S series (Morino IV S or V s perhaps). But Hohner tried to stay on the cheap side (their side, not the customer's side) and only used TAM (tipo a mano) reeds, not "a mano" reeds. A real shame considering how much these instruments went for in those days.

 

[the boxman]

thanks for the info Debra, I prefer the tone of the Morino. Although there are some really nice sounding Italian accordions.

 

[debra]

thanks for the info Debra, I prefer the tone of the Morino. Although there are some really nice sounding Italian accordions.

Interesting you say that. I like the tone of the Morino as well. I also like the tone of Italian accordions. I have never understood what the cause is for the tone difference. The construction of the equivalent Morino and Excelsior is virtually identical, yet the timbre they produce is clearly different.
I consistently found the M in cassotto to sound more mellow than the L on the Morino and on Italian accordions the L is more mellow than the M (in cassotto), yet I see no difference inside. Can anyone explain what causes the difference? A nice experiment for someone with an equivalent Morino and Excelsior would be to swap the reed blocks and check what this does to the sound (if you can really swap them)... but who has both?
By the way, my Russian AKKO bayan also has a more mellow L register than M, but it has visible differences like the reed for an L note (one octave higher) and the equivalent M note being different, whereas on a Morino or Italian accordion these reeds are identical.