Gretsch
An ocarina patented by the president of the Brooklyn instrument firm, and granted after his death
The company was publishing an instruction book for its own ocarina in 1940, four years before William W. Gretsch, its president, filed an ocarina patent. He died in 1948 and the patent issued in February 1949.
A patent and three dated publications carry this subject, and the museum holds all four; the company history around them comes from the firm’s own published account and from two drum-trade histories, all of them modern secondary sources, and the page says so where it leans on them. The wartime story most often told about these instruments is used here only as far as a 1944 publisher’s imprint takes it, which is not as far as the story goes. Research and drafting were done with help from Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant.
The patent that ties Gretsch to the ocarina names the company in the line identifying the inventor:
William W. Gretsch, Forest Hills, N. Y., assignor to The Fred. Gretsch Manufacturing Company, Brooklyn, N. Y., a corporation of New York
— US 2,460,931, application December 4, 1944
The line gives the assignee’s name, its city, and that it was a New York corporation. It does not say what else that company made.
A firm of exactly that name — The Fred. Gretsch Manufacturing Company, of Brooklyn — was a maker of drums and, later, guitars, and its own published history traces the business to 1883 and to a German immigrant, Friedrich Gretsch. This page treats the two as one company, and the inventor, William W. Gretsch, as the firm’s president of that name. The match is of name, city, and corporate form, all three together; the patent file does not say that the assignee is that firm. So the identification is the museum’s, not the document’s, and anything below that rests on the drum firm’s history is marked as doing so.
Who filed it
The family and presidency dates in this section come from the firm’s own published history and from two modern drum-trade accounts of it, not from documents of the time.
William W. “Bill” Gretsch was the founder’s grandson. His father, Fred Gretsch Sr., had taken the firm over at fifteen when his own father died in 1895, and retired in 1942. By those accounts, William was president from 1942 until his death in 1948. He filed the patent on December 4, 1944, as the sitting president; it issued on February 8, 1949, after his death.
What the patent claims
In its own words:
ocarinas “composed of only two parts or elements”, all parts “capable of being molded from plastics or other suitable material”, made of “as few parts as possible, thus enabling its construction to be simple and economic.”
Two elements, and the specification names them: a “finger element” and a “thumb element”, each called after whose digits open and close its apertures. Five claims, and the Patent Office put it in class 84-380.
Another of its stated objects is accuracy: ocarinas “in which the accuracy of the tonal effects is determined during the production of the device and which cannot be changed, or injured, by any displacement of parts through accident to the original construction.”
It was still being cited as prior art more than forty years after it issued: a Japanese firm’s American ocarina design of 1990 lists it, and so does a vessel-flute patent of 2001.
The books
Three dated books, all in the museum’s collection, predate the patent application.
1940. Music is Fun with This Gretsch Ocarina Book. Written by Clarence J. Shoemaker, Mus. M., and published by the firm itself. The cover’s imprint reads “THE FRED. GRETSCH MFG. CO. · CHICAGO · Publisher · BROOKLYN,” where the patent gives only Brooklyn. The cover illustrates a Gretsch Alto C ocarina and carries the line “Anyone! Everyone can play ocarina with the army method!”
Its copyright page reads “Copyright 1940 by Fred Gretsch Mfg. Co., Chicago, Ill.” The patent application came four years later.
A copyright line gives the year the text was first published, not the year of the printing that carries it, and the museum’s copy is a later printing. Its back cover advertises the quartet book, Favorite Songs for Men in the Service, and reproduces that book’s foreword, and the quartet book is copyrighted 1943. So this copy of Music is Fun was printed in 1943 or later, and its cover, army method included, may not be the 1940 cover.
1943. Favorite Songs for Men in the Service, and the set of four it came with. The quartet book is a separate title, not a second edition of Music is Fun: its cover is lettered Favorite Songs for Men in the Service, Especially Arranged for the Ocarina Quartettes (Sweet Potatoe), with Ukulele and Guitar Chords, by the same author and publisher, at seventy-five cents. The museum holds it as a set: the book and four ocarinas, an Alto C, two Soprano Gs, and a Soprano C. So the arrangements were published in 1943, and the museum’s copy came with four instruments to play them.
The book’s contents page names its instruments, and sets thirty tunes in three scorings: six for two C Sopranos and two G Sopranos, twelve for two G Sopranos and two C Altos, and twelve for one C Soprano, two G Sopranos, and one C Alto. The set matches the third exactly and cannot play the other two, because the first wants a second C Soprano and the second a second C Alto, and neither is in the box. Twelve of the thirty tunes came playable out of the package.
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas is filed under the first scoring, the one with no alto in it, and its score calls for a G Alto, a name that appears in none of the three scorings and on none of the four instruments. The contents page may misfile it, the part label may be a misprint, or the company may have used G Soprano and G Alto for the same instrument in different places. Nothing in the book settles it.
1944. Fifty Famous Favorites for the Ocarina with Piano Accompaniment. Robbins Music Corporation of New York, not a Gretsch publication but one with Gretsch material in its closing pages. Inside, in the publisher’s own words:
“Special Edition for the United States Government Featuring The”G. I.” System for Ocarina as taught by the Armed Services”
That is the publisher’s own claim, not a government record. It says the method was taught in the Armed Services; it does not say instruments were issued to individual servicemen, which is the story most often told about Gretsch ocarinas. No document the museum holds says that.
Chronology
The patent rows are read from the document, which the museum holds. The company rows come from the firm’s own published history and from drum-trade accounts of it, and are marked as such; they are modern secondary sources about a living brand’s own past.
| 1883 | Friedrich Gretsch, a German immigrant, opens a musical instrument shop in Brooklyn | the firm’s history |
| 1895 | Friedrich dies; his son Fred Gretsch Sr., aged fifteen, takes over | the firm’s history |
| 1940 | Music is Fun with This Gretsch Ocarina Book by Clarence J. Shoemaker, published by the company, Chicago and Brooklyn | the museum’s copy, copyright line |
| 1942 | Fred Sr. retires; William W. Gretsch becomes president | the firm’s history; drum-trade accounts |
| 1943 | Favorite Songs for Men in the Service, arranged for ocarina quartettes, a separate title; the museum’s copy came as a set with four ocarinas: an Alto C, two Soprano Gs, and a Soprano C | the museum’s set, copyright line |
| 1944 | Fifty Famous Favorites for the Ocarina, Robbins Music Corporation, New York; the museum’s copy carries Gretsch material and a “Special Edition for the United States Government” with a “G. I.” System “as taught by the Armed Services” | the museum’s copy; the text registered April 12, 1944, AA 463501, in an entry that does not mention the Special Edition |
| Dec 4, 1944 | William W. Gretsch, of Forest Hills, New York, files an ocarina patent, assigning it to The Fred. Gretsch Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn: two parts, capable of being molded from plastics or other suitable material, the air passage inside one of them | US 2,460,931 |
| 1948 | William W. Gretsch dies in office | the firm’s history; drum-trade accounts |
| Feb 8, 1949 | The patent is granted, five claims, class 84-380 | US 2,460,931 |
| 1990 | A Japanese ocarina design patent cites it | US D306,454 |
| 2001 | A vessel-flute patent cites it | US 6,255,570 |
Considered and not used
1943, ocarinas issued to servicemen. This rests on one forum member’s account of what their father told them and a second member’s agreement, with no document behind either. The 1944 Robbins book, in the table above, says its method was taught in the Armed Services, not that instruments were issued.