Martin Miller

Biography

Martin Miller of Vienna came out in 1840 with a piano wire superior to the cast-steel wire of Webster & Horsfall of Birmingham, touching off strong competition in the piano wire trade alongside firms such as Rollason & Son and Smith & Houghton. Miller's wire continued to be favored by most German piano makers until Moritz Poehlmann of Nuremberg began producing his own wire around 1855. In comparative testing, Poehlmann's wire proved denser, though Miller's would stretch more and consequently did not hold tune as well as Poehlmann's harder, denser product. Official tensile-strength tests conducted by the jury of the 1873 Vienna World's Exhibition confirmed this, with wire from Martin Miller & Sons breaking at notably lower strains across all gauges than Poehlmann's wire. Despite losing ground to Poehlmann, Miller's firm remained a significant competitor in the European piano wire industry. From Spillane (1890): Martin Miller was granted U.S. Patent No. 34,640 in 1862 for a method of electro-plating steel or other wire with gold, silver, or other metals, cited by Spillane as an earlier precedent related to Colonel H. W. Gray's later 1876 patent for electro-plating piano strings in gold at Schomacker & Company.

Highlights

• In 1840 introduced in Vienna a piano wire superior to Webster & Horsfall's cast-steel wire, sparking strong competition
• His wire remained favored by most German piano makers until Moritz Poehlmann's wire overtook it
• Official tests at the 1873 Vienna Exposition showed Martin Miller & Sons' wire breaking at consistently lower strains than Poehlmann's
• Granted U.S. Patent No. 34,640 in 1862 for a method of electro-plating steel or other wire with gold, silver, or other metals

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), p. 125.

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 192.

Public domain.