Herrljunga piano and reed organ collection

The Herrljunga municipality has since long been an important place for Swedish piano and reed organ industry. From 1898 when Carl Bernhard Pettersson established his reed organ factory until the middle of the 1980s, there were around a dozen factories. Such a concentration in a rather small place depends on several different interacting factors. Herrljunga was a railway junction which made delivering of goods and supplying of finished instruments easy. Related industries such as joiner’s factories and a keyboard making workshop were always in the vicinity acting as sub-contractors, as well as a pipe organ workshop. An iron foundry in Nossebro that made cast iron frames for pianos and grand pianos was not far away Herrljunga and close surroundings thus offered an infrastructure that formed the basis of the production. The Herrljunga municipality created a collection of tools, instruments and other documentation that consists of three main parts, the Bergling piano factory, the Anders Sjögren keyboard workshop and the C.B. Pettersson organ and piano factory.

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The Bergling piano factory was established in 1920 by Albert Bergling (1884-1958) who was succeeded by his son Uno (1908-1992) until c. 1965. The production eventually ceased in 1978 whereupon the company turned into a workshop for repairing pianos and reed organs. The main part of the tools, machines, veneer press, materials, wooden models for cast iron frames, finished cast iron frames probably from all the piano models made in the factory, among them two that are still in their open packing, semi-manufactured objects, work-pieces etc. used in this factory is preserved. Logically, a workshop room of the Bergling piano factory will be reconstructed in the exhibition of the Klaverens Hus.
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Anders Sjögren came from Karlstad to Herrljunga in 1914 and was employed as a keyboard maker by C.B. Pettersson and established his own workshop in 1920. His son John-Erik was in charge of the company after the death of his father in 1948 until the end in 1986. The most important customers of the company were pipe organ, reed organ and piano makers. Except carpentry tools and a veneer press the collection comprises keyboard patterns and sets of key gauge blocks, unique objects that in Sweden otherwise only exist on photos. Drawings for keyboards are attached to the business correspondence of the workshop from the 1940s.

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A large part of the diplomas awarded at art and industry exhibitions to the C.B. Pettersson factory (est. in 1898) belong to the collection. Eight of these are shown in the exhibition of which one was given to the worker Karl Lindahl for good work at reed organs awarded a prize at the Halmstad exhibition in 1912. It is the only known diploma of its kind in Sweden.

The Herrljunga collection also contains 16 reed organs made by factories of the place.

On permanent loan from the Herrljunga municipality in 2006

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	​	​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Keyboard pattern from the Sjögren collection ​
​ Cabinet with tools from the Bergling collection	​

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