In 1998, the company moved its headquarters from Loveland to nearby Deerfield Township. The company responded by acquiring Wurlitzer to increase market share and by moving manufacturing overseas to reduce production costs. However, difficulties continued as demographic changes and foreign competition slowed sales of keyboard instruments. The new company went public in 1986 as the Baldwin Piano and Organ Company and moved its headquarters to Loveland, Ohio. ĭuring bankruptcy proceedings in 1984, the Baldwin piano business was sold to its management. However, the piano business was not part of the bankruptcy. In 1983, the holding company and several of its subsidiaries were forced into bankruptcy with a total debt of over $9 billion-at that time, the largest bankruptcy ever. Meanwhile, the company had taken on significant debt to finance its acquisitions and new facilities, and was finding it increasingly difficult to meet its loan obligations. By 1982, however, the piano business contributed only three percent of Baldwin's $3.6 billion revenues. In 1980, the company opened a new piano manufacturing facility in Trumann, Arkansas. The company changed its name to Baldwin-United in 1977 after a merger with United Corp. Thompson, Baldwin bought dozens of firms and by the early 1980s owned over 200 savings and loan institutions, insurance companies and investment firms, including MGIC Investment Corporation. Throughout the 1970s, the company undertook a significant bid to diversify into financial services. The Gretsch guitar operation was sold back to the Gretsch family in 1989.
However, Fender and Gibson continued to dominate, and sales did not reach expected levels. In 1967, Baldwin also bought Gretsch guitars, which had its own experienced guitar sales force and a distribution network of authorized retail outlets. Unaccustomed to marketing guitars, the Baldwin stores failed to interest many guitar buyers, and sales proved disappointing. Scherer developed the Prismatone pickup for nylon string guitars. During this time period, Baldwin engineer Robert C. After an unsuccessful bid to buy Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Baldwin bought Burns of London in 1965 for $380,000, and began selling the guitars through the company's piano retail outlets. The company next attempted to capitalize on the growth of pop music. Subsequently production of upright pianos was moved from Cincinnati, Ohio to Greenwood. In 1961 Baldwin constructed a new piano factory in Greenwood, Mississippi. In 1959, Baldwin constructed a new piano manufacturing plant in Conway, Arkansas, originally to manufacture upright pianos: by 1973, the company had built 1,000,000 upright pianos. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik and remained its owner until 1986. In 1961, Lucien Wulsin III became president. In 1946, Baldwin introduced its first electronic organ (developed in 1941), which became so successful that the company changed its name to the Baldwin Piano & Organ Company. While the employment of wood components in military aircraft could by no means be considered a resounding success, lessons learned in constructing plywood aircraft wings ultimately assisted in Baldwin's development of its 21-ply maple pinblock design used in its postwar piano models.Īfter the war ended, Baldwin resumed selling pianos, and by 1953 the company had doubled production figures from prewar levels. Baldwin factories were used to manufacture plywood airplane components for various aircraft such as the Aeronca PT-23 trainer and the stillborn Curtiss-Wright C-76 Caravan cargo aircraft.
However, the company's president, Lucien Wulsin II, had created a large reserve fund for such situations, and Baldwin was able to ride out the market downturn.ĭuring World War II, the US War Production Board ordered the cessation of all US piano manufacturing so that the factories could be used for the US war effort.
The models became unpopular by the end of the 1920s, which, coupled with the beginning of the Great Depression, could have spelled disaster for Baldwin. A piano factory was constructed in Cincinnati, Ohio. By 1913, business had become brisk, with Baldwin exporting to thirty-two countries in addition to having retailers throughout the United States.īaldwin, like many other manufacturers, began building player pianos in the 1920s. Baldwin-manufactured pianos also won top awards at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the 1914 Anglo-American Exposition. The company won its first major award in 1900, when their model 112 won the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the first American manufactured piano to win such an award. Wulsin ultimately purchased Baldwin's estate and continued the company's shift from retail to manufacturing. Baldwin died in 1899 and left the vast majority of his estate to fund missionary causes.
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