OPINION PIECE
on the one hand, obviously there is a lot of money to be made
under the name Morino... prices online and at auction remain
at premium to exorbitant figures
but the last time Hohner tried to tap into this money stream,
instead of actually resurrecting the Morino line, they merely
chose to have some nice accordions built that were more or less
"morino quality" sort of but by no means would be considered
a true Morino (by anyone who has ever worked on or played one)
compare to other Music Industry classics like the Fender Rhodes,
which is an iconic instrument... Roland purchased the brand at it's
low-point, and then proceeded to build Rhodes-like instruments
which were quite good and even sounded almost identical BUT
just were not the same... eventually they allowed a "rabid fan" type
of consortium to purchase the brand, and these folks actually
re-created the Rhodes...
you can find other parallels for certain models of Crumar, Arp, Moog
and even Sequential Curcuits keyboards
the iconic Hammond tone generator organ design took a middle course...
much like Paolo Soprani, SEM, and some others, they actually went totally
and completely out of business to the point that their physical assets were
sold at auction basically as scrap and material, the rest to the landfill..
the offices were closed and emptied of records and furniture and awards...
THEN
the brand names/intellectual assets were auctioned off and purchased by other companies
or speculators... in Hammond's case, the brand ended up with Suzuki Australia
which was primarily an electric Piano brand. AT first electronic versions
of Hammond looking organs and keyboards were produced, which weren't bad,
but did not satisfy the Market. Eventually "rabid fan" types got involved
under the Hammond banner as well as under independent even new brand names,
and today you can get a Hammond Organ that is so close to the original
it is impossible to tell from the next room ... though we still do not have
"tone generators" that growl we even have the original Hammond waterfall keys !
there will never actually be a new for-real-honest-to-God Morino or even a real Gola
under the current ownership of Hohner
(which has not been owned by Germans for several decades now)
they are not fans of their own products... at least not to the point
of caring THAT much to try and make real Morino's
(and without exhuming GOLA from the grave and cloning his DNA
we do not have a chance in hell of ever building a new GOLA
that really IS a Gola either, because the secrets died with him)
hey, the management/ownership have kept the Hohner brand alive though...
and they still put a lot of very nice, new accordions, into peoples hands
every day, so it isn't like they don't make some efforts... unlike
some Italian companies that still do nothing but bleed proud old
Brands and fleece foolish customers, also on a daily basis
ciao
Ventura
