CATHEDRAL CHIMES tubular bells

Here's something nearly every good 'organ man' has a corner-ful of somewhere -- CHIME TUBES. They are 'tubular bells' by definition and even though they look like a simple pile of metal pipe lengths at a glance, they are actually quite a bit more than that in reality. Like the sets of chimes on a big rack played by a percussionist in a symphony orchestra, each one is precisely made of tubular brass then tuned to a specific note of the musical scale -- when then struck by a 'hammer' they ring out that note in exactly the same way as their orchestral counterparts. (in an organ, there is an electro-mechanical/pneumatic striker arrangement and they play from the keyboard)

A little while ago I showed my antique four note "dinner chime" with a little about the J. C. Deagan Company of Chicago, its maker and the preeminent maker of tuned percussion instruments of all varieties in the first half of the 1900's. These chimes are also products of J.C. Deagan and are in fact examples of their "CLASS A" variety, each one is stamped as such near its bottom. Several also carry the full company name with patent date. Each has its musical note stamped near the top along with a hanging hole where it attached to the striker mechanisms, the tops are mostly closed with soldered-in brass plugs, a few (larger) also have plugs in the bottoms for 'voicing' purposes. These are all utilitarian shiny nickel plated, they were also available in polished brass when desired, often in the generally unusual situations where they would be installed in 'public view' somewhere instead of buried in the back corner of an organ pipe chamber.

One of the hallmarks of DEAGAN CLASS A's can be seen when looking closely at them -- along with coming in graduated lengths (that correspond to the musical notes of course, the longer ones play lower notes than shorter ones) they are also "scaled" in diameter -- each higher note is also smaller around than the neighboring lower ones. This was a high quality (costly!) production detail not often maintained by other manufacturers, even Deagan themselves always offered other cheaper classes of chime sets that weren't scaled as much if at all.

There are 29 tubes shown here in the back of my truck. Once more like most collections in organ shop corners, there *still* isn't quite a complete set here -- Class A's came in sets of 25 from the factory, I have five extra low note tubes and am missing one small one. <headdesk>

Here's my dinner chime:

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/302559-antique-deagan-no-20-dinner-chime-proje