John Brinsmead & Sons

[susan c]

Hi all, i am hopeing someone can help me, i have an antique set of John Brinsmead and sons tuning forks, i can find lots of information about his piano's but nothing about his fork's.
They are in a red leather coverd wooden box that contains three forks and stamped C540 Philharmonic, C.Society of arts and C51/3 Continental
Any information would be most welcome !!
Thank You.

[Gill the Piano]

They are likely to have been issued by Brinsmead to their tuners. The different names correspond to the various pitches which were used at that time - concert pitch A440 wasn't settled upon until 1933. And now we're all wandering off, with the Berlin Phil tuning to A444 and the Russians favouring A446! Your forks are C pitch, and the modern one is 512.3. They must be reasonably early since ones from the turn of the 20th century were labelled as 'Old Philharmonic' and 'New Philharmonic'.

[Colin Nicholson]

(Not stepping on your toes Gill!).... do you mean 523.3 ?

[Gill the Piano]

Yes, it's official, I'm a dur-brain. But there ARE 512.3 forks, I've got some!

[vernon]

I've lots of granpa's forks from about 500 to 550.The fork I use for 444 is made by J&JGoddard(remember them ol' timers?) and is stamped 530 "Medium Pitch"
Anyway, who gave the Germans and Russians(and Japanese) permission to alter from 440 without telling me?