Hohner Unsere Lieblinge F

Hi Sarge, I was really pleased to find this harmonica. I like to do multi-track recordings with Audacity and find this one sounds great along with a tin whistle. I've had a couple of nice old harmonicas from Ebay in my time, but also one or two real fails. The first Echo Harp I bought from Ebay smelled so bad when it arrived, no amount of cleaning would ever make me want to put it in my mouth.

Here in the UK we have a site called Harmonics Direct who stock tremolo harmonicas made by "Dales Song" which are available in all the major keys including sharps and flats. I've never tried one, but I'm temped to give the Bb go. They sell for £12.99 plus postage (not sure what that is in Dollars)
harmonicas-direct.com/product/dales-song-tremolo-harmonica/
I did find a Chinese tremolo in the key of E on Ebay last year. The brand is Qi Mei. My son and daughter bought it and gave it to me at Christmas, bless them.

Rod, finding one in F is rare. Lucky you!

I just had a look at the ebay listing for those lovely old harmonicas, I'm in the UK so it's not a good time to think about ordering anything from overseas at the moment. I do look at our UK ebay regularly. A while ago I used to click on old instruments quite often, but these days I do try to say to myself, "Do you really need it?" I have a Hohner "Unsere Lieblinge" in C, also "The Hohner Band" in C which I think is what they were called here, but more often than not I pick up the Hohner "Echo Harp" when I need to play a richter tuned tremolo.
I have never seen another "Unsere Lieblinge" in the key of F, so I do think myself very lucky to have found that one.

I saw some old Hohner advertising literature that presented the harmonica as a beginner's instrument, something to learn musical basics on. It seemed expected that the player who persevered would move onto a more expensive instrument like a clarinet or accordion. Thus the key of C with no sharps or flats was the starting point. Back then electric amplification was less common and musical instruments had to be loud enough to be part of a band. This may explain the prevalence of C.

Hhhmmm ... I have never seen any "Unsere Lieblinge" which had been a tremolo harmonica. All of them I know and I have played are octave tuned.
I have an old one in F, with 32 holes, wood comb and the round covers on the backside too. And I have new copy of an old one in C, with 28 holes, "classicalo" raw cut wood comb and old form of the covers. It is out of a series "CLASSICS", which had been produced as a re-release around 2004 and are discontinued as well.

Nowadays they have newly designed covers with mainly straight backside and a maple comb with improved surface, smooth and laquered waterproof. But they are available not any more in a different key than C.

www.hohner.de/en/instruments/harmonicas/octave/unsere-lieblinge-32
Citation from the Hohner-website:
“Unsere Lieblinge” is German for “our favorites”. The smallest instrument in our Octave Series,..."

Here is a sound sample with one of these in F, which must have been still available until 2009, as you can see on the date of the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQjq8hi6kC4&t=1s

And that is the way i am used to play it (but the video is not from me):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCDdp4dcsJQ

To my eyes the modern "successor" of "Unsere Lieblinge" is the Seydel Club Steel. It has a tuning corresponding to "Unsere Lieblinge" and has a mouth friendly plastic comb. It is available in the keys of Bb, C, D and HG. I have one in D.

www.seydel1847.de/Products/Octav


I hope I could resolve some kind of error here.
At least I would recommend you to check your harmonicas, whether they really are tromoloes, or whether they rather are an octave type. Maybe there had been different ones been out in the past.


dear greetings
triona