Organ Supply Industries developed and sold a small hand-cranked organ. Only a small number were produced. These web pages are being developed as a place where owners and or fans of these machines can exchange information.
"Strasse Orgel" is German for "street organ." OSI also referred to them as "Strassen Orgel" in some documents.
If you have an interest in these neat little musical instruments you may join the group by contacting me (Wally Venable) at wallace.venable@mail.wvu.edu
Include your Name, and Address, (and email address or website if you have them). If you own an Strasse Orgel, please tell me the name (if any) you have given the organ and the Serial Number. By joining the OSI Strasse Orgel Owners' Group you give me permission to provide your information to other group members.
The OSI Strasse Orgel is no longer available for sale by OSI.
I have compiled spreadsheets of song lists for the three OSI Music Cards which we own. These are provided here in HTML format..
Our cards are:
Please send me additional information or corrections.
The OSI Street Organs are tuned to the Carl Frei 20 note (German 20er) scale. This scale is used on many small modern crank organs, so it is also known as the "Standard 20 Note Scale," the "Raffin 20" scale and the "Smith Busker Organ" scale. There are other 20 note organ scales in use, particularly on older barrel organs such as the Gem Roller Organs.
The notes in this scale are:
You will note that there a lot of "missing notes." B, C#, F# and G# do not occur in the scale at all..
The OSI Street Organs were available in two case styles: A "Plain Case" design which lends itself as an ideal platform for custom inlaid woodwork, paintings, decals, etc., and a "Traditional Panel" Street Organ which offered a "Classic" look with routered inlaid panels on all four sides. Each case style was available in various hardwoods and finishes, including custom finishes.
The Melody flute pipes are made of solid brass and are polished to a brilliant finish.
EASE OF OPERATION
This organ was designed to be "user-friendly." To operate the organ, simply rotate the crank arm located at the rear of the case, fast or slow, in either direction. No more paper music rolls to rewind or wrinkle. Music was available on a plug-in type music card, from which musical selections can be picked at random or in sequence. Tempo is adjusted by a rotary dial.
TRADITIONAL WIND BLOWN PIPES
Turning the ergonomically correct hand crank drives a double wedge bellows and reservoir. This supplies wind through the electro-mechanical chest and into the 22 individually hand-crafted wood bass pipes and solid brass melody pipes. Each set of pipes is individually voiced for a full, rich sound.
ELECTRONIC MUSIC ROLL
OSI engineers have developed a music reading system to replace the old and clumsy perforated music rolls. Rather than encoding the music on rolls, it was encode it on a credit card-sized, plug-in memory module. Each module is capable of holding 100 songs, of which 25 are included at no charge with the purchase of a Street Organ. Expanding the musical library was possible with additional selections was possible with the purchase of additional cards. Included with each Street Organ was a 12 volt DC rechargeable battery and charger, which supplies continuous power to the electronics module for many hours of enjoyment.
OSI can provide only limited support for these small organs.
Organ Supply Industries
P.O. Box 8325 Erie, Pa 16505-0325
814 835-2244 814
838-0349 Fax