hey Alan, well for me the continuity of their committment and philosophy
was fractured with the move to Pigini
i realise that for some of you die hards, the fracture occured when they
moved to Italy in the first place.. but for me it was still the same because
all the machines, tooling, shell forms and presses, everything was brought
over and most of it was set up (some machinery was still military mothballed in
steel barrels up in the storage area) so you had the continuity still.
i mean you can salvage parts off a New York to fix an Italian and vice versa
for the models that were continued through the transition (and up to the
time Pigini bought it)
now the accordion bodies are shared, the mechanics are shared.. while it is
possible Pigini replaced some of their tooling with the CEMEX equipment
they had to choose because there is not enough room at Pigini to have
brought it all. They did try and keep the Ex Electronics Dept going as a
unit but that was quietly, eventually closed too. That would have been the last
Electronics R&D in house Manufacturing unit in an Accordion factory, operating
continuously from New York then expanding during the Organ Accordion period
(Cosmos and Digisyzer were developed in house, as was MIDIVOX)
of course the Kiln could not be moved from CEMEX locatiopn, as it was
built in place.. it went cold and was used for Storage by Bompezzo for awhile,
i don't know who if anyone has the place now
don't forget they had the only Stradella mechanism with built in arms and
pins for electronic switch incorporation.. because they made it all in house and
were forward thinking enough to engineer it in and see the long term value
not just for themselves, but for US too. Did Pigini keep the Excelsior stradella
manufacturing equipment ?
they DID keep Art and continued to service his excelsiors
they even had the cellulose (not celluloid) equipment and unused sheet stock
for doing repairs on the pre-rocker models
there were some models of Student 3 reeders that were in continuous production
for near 60 years.. most parts interchangeable
Some of our repair people have addressed (with dissatisfaction) some of
the differences between Pigini and Cemex Excelsiors.. some people are happy with
the new ones, some are not.. but like the Petosa AM and the Giulietti and the Pan's
and the Super whatevers being built today, the original body forms were lost
to the past.. lost when factories were liquidated suddenly.. lost when executive
decisions were made, lost to the Fire, lost to Rust
if YOU feel, as I do, that an accordion is the result of it's ENTIRE engineering
and crafting, and that the special ones were partially ages and ages of trial and error
and then the result of partially a lucky or blessed congruence of EVERYTHING
that went into building them, then you will agree there is simply no way to
build another AM or Myron or Symphony, because once you lost the original
body forms you lost the unique dimensions, reflections, that contributed to
those blessed events being born/built. You cannot, even if you have a love
affair with the old brands as Maximilliano does, fully reverse engineer
every detail of the classics.. the materials are just not available.
so no, i do not want a new Excelsior from Pigini, but i wish them well
and am glad the name/brand is still alive and some of the models,
perhaps the AC is still special.. i don't know.
