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Kurt Jacob & Co. Pty. Ltd. was founded in January 1937 when Kurt Jacob (1911 - 1997) was sent to Australia by M. Hohner to manage the importation, distribution and sales of Hohner Harmonicas and Accordions in Australia and the Southern Pacific region, including parts of Asia. The company remains a family run business, though Kurt sold it to the Smits family in 1981.
Kurt was an employee and family friend of Hohner, and was a talented and dedicated musician who had played piano with the Munich Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. Hohner's Harmonicas had been selling extremely well in Australia in the 1920s and '30s (Frank Albert, of Albert & Sons who made the Boomerang brand of harmonicas, did so well from the harmonica craze that he was able to build the deco-style mansion "Boomerang" in Elizabeth Bay), and the Hohner company felt it needed some representation here. Kurt was also finding things increasingly difficult in 1930s Germany due to his faith. The Hohner family smuggled Kurt to London via Switzerland in 1936, and he arrived in Melbourne in 1937, where he immediately began work promoting Hohner's products, including the then new Hohner Chromonica. He travelled the length and breadth of the country, often by plane or train, but mostly by car.
The Second World War interrupted business, and Kurt went to Sydney, joining his family there, and worked in an aircraft factory. In 1948, with Hohner back in production in Germany, he re-established the company in Sydney at 110 Bathurst St (the Albert Building - an ironic if unintentional twist, since Alberts were to cease production of the Boomerang brand within a few years). After a fire in that premises in 1949, the company moved to Market St and continued to expand. Kurt was renowned for his generosity and unflinching dedication to music in general and the harmonica in particular - so much so that it was rumoured that one of his fellow-German employees, an expert harmonica repairer, was a former lieutenant in the SS!!
Kurt continued to build the company and the Hohner brand for the next 30 years or more, with Hohner increasingly becoming the dominant brand worldwide.
In January 1956 Johannes Smits, a brass instrument maker and repairer who had worked for Schenkelaars in the Netherlands, arrived in Sydney with his young family. He established a brass repair workshop soon after, training his son Jac in the business. Johannes' twin sons Hans and Frank went to work in the music industry, Hans for Sydney retailer Palings, and Frank for Rose Music, which later became Yamaha Music Australia.
The family established the retail store and repair centre Smits' Music in Eastwood. Johannes died in mid-1972, and first Hans and then Frank joined the family business. After many successful years they purchased Kurt Jacob and Company on January 28th, 1981.
At that stage the main business of the Company was still Hohner products. Since that time the catalogue has expanded considerably to include Denis Wick, Trevor James, Buffet-Crampon, Besson, Kanstul Instruments, Vancore Percussion, F.E. Olds & Son, Humes & Berg Mutes, Hofner and St Blues Guitars, Sonor Educational Percussion, plus many support lines of accessories.
Smits Music ceased operation in 2000, on the eve of the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax - it seems Frank really didn't want to do the extra paperwork.....