Albert Staib

Biography

Albert Staib, president of the Staib-Abendschein Company, had by the time of writing been active in the piano action business for over thirty-five years. His father was foreman of the action department at Decker Brothers and taught Albert the trade when he began his apprenticeship in 1879. Albert himself became foreman at Decker Brothers before resigning in 1890 to take charge of the factory for the newly formed Staib-Abendschein Company, which made piano actions for the trade. Together with partner George F. Abendschein, he studied prior efforts by other inventors to perfect the repetition mechanism in upright piano actions, employed the inventor Snyder for two years on the problem, and ultimately developed, on scientific and mathematical principles, the "Mastertouch" repeating action, capable of 1,400 successive strokes per minute and protected by 143 United States patents, nine of them basic.

Highlights

• Learned the piano action trade from his father, who was foreman of Decker Brothers' action department
• Apprenticed in the trade beginning in 1879 and was foreman at Decker Brothers before resigning in 1890
• Co-invented the patented "Mastertouch" repeating upright piano action, protected by 143 U.S. patents

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. II (1913), pp. 219, 220.

Public domain.