Aug 5th, 2005,
The McKinley Act of 1891 required that all instruments be labeled with information on where it was manufactured. So, you may see, for example a Carl Fischer horn, that will also say Czechoslovakia.

A later law (1923) added "made in ". . . to the requirement.

Reply #1 - Dec 4th, 2005

after 1896 the McKinley amendment was modified to state that the stamp must be in English

Reply #5 - Mar 28th, 2010
Obviously, the country of origin labeling can sometimes be rather subtle. I was working today on a cornet which is engraved: Henri Gautier Virtuoso Cornet on the bell (Lyon & Healy) On the second valve casing - partly covered by the bell brace - it is labeled B&F. And, other than the valve numbers, it at first appeared there were no other markings on the horn.
Until I started to polish the second valve's bottom valve cap. (The other valve caps were not marked.
The print is very small and upside down!


Reply #6 - Mar 2nd, 2022,

You make several good points.
We do tend to assume that instruments in this country were sold in this country. That is an important thinking error.
Regarding the "made in" label. I've always heard that it was enacted in 1923, but doing a quick google, it does appear that 1914 may be the correct date. But before I amended that in the Reading the Clues section, I wanted to make sure that there isn't something that I'm missing.


Reply #7 - Mar 2nd, 2022, at 11:44am
The addition of "Made in" was amended in 1914 but not strictly enforced until somewhere around 1921, as far as I can find. So, anything without "Made in" could still be as late as 1921.

Here is a small blog article about labeling and the McKinley act, written by a violin shop appraiser but probably just as useful for Brass instruments.

http://masterhandviolin.com/Blog3.html