Venerable toy piano manufacturer Schoenhut showcased a new product line at last month's American International Toy Fair in New York.
The St. Augustine-based company exhibited a number of new folk instruments, including banjos, ukuleles, psalteries and thumb pianos.
"We already make children's acoustic and electric guitars and harp instruments," notes Renee Trinca, president of Schoenhut, which carries on the vision of Albert Schoenhut, who founded the company in 1872. "Our focus is on children's music instruments, and we pretty much got it covered now."
Trinca adds that the folk instruments are made in Schoenhut's factory in St. Augustine, meeting requests for American-made products. The company used to manufacture everything in the U.S. but much of its merchandise is now made overseas to cut costs.
Also on display at Schoenhut's Toy Fair booth was its recently introduced Piano Pals--toy pianos that "grow with your child," such that the piano at first sits on the floor much like the company's My First Piano models, then is screwed onto a base when the toddler is big enough to sit at the small piano bench that is included.
Trinca further points to the "real" 49-key stringed pianos that were shown.
"It took three years to engineer and is a big hit," she says. "It's the same kind of strings and mechanism of an 88-key piano, and we've had a lot of requests from parents who say their children learned on a toy piano, but aren't ready yet for a full 88-key instrument. It's a little pricier, but kids age five-to-seven feel more comfortable with a piano their size--that they can reach the pedals."
Albert Schoenhut, incidentally, began making toy pianos with hammers hitting glass sounding bars instead of the strings used on real pianos. He later changed to metal bars to make the instruments more durable. Professional musicians have since employed toy pianos as serious concert instruments, most notably John Cage, who composed Suite for Toy Piano in 1948.
"We feel very, very fortunate that classic toys--like little red wagons and vintage pianos--remain so popular," says Trinca. "The poor economy hasn't hurt us in any way--in fact, we've doubled our business and plan to do the same in 2010."
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