Why did Æolian Skinner ever close?

[ArchitectTJN]

I recently wondered why Æolian Skinner ever closed? From what I've heard they produced wonderful and very, very, expensive pipe organs. If they were so wonderful then why did they close?

[SchnarrHorn]

Company finances. The letters published in Aeolian-Skinner Remembered by Charles Callahan describe it. The company was having problems already in the 60's, running out of capital, having to find investors, etc. There was a recession in the US from 1969 to 1970 which contributed. There were also unprofitable contracts. The company had to go Chapter 11 because it was hounded by creditors.

George

[AllenAnalog]

I can highly recommend the Callahan book but be prepared to be very sad as you read parts of it.

[SchnarrHorn]

I agree it's a good book, but the first tears to be shed would be due to the cost of acquiring a copy. The cheapest copy listed at bookfinder.com is $200 through Amazon with the top price listing at $1700. Wowza. I didn't realize I have gold sitting on my book shelves. Perhaps it's available through one's local library via inter-library loan.

George

[gtc]

In that case, the copy that sold on eBay on Feb 26, 2022 , 3:05PM for US $124.95 was a bargain.

[aeolian pat]

too many contracts and no inflation clause. To fulfill their contracts they had to job out a tremendous amount of pipework and other parts. Their instruments were not all up to snuff.

[gtc]

too many contracts and no inflation clause. To fulfill their contracts they had to job out a tremendous amount of pipework and other parts. Their instruments were not all up to snuff.

Paradoxically, in business, having a product that is too successful can be toxic to the company unless its management is up to the challenge. Allen could well have gone the same way as Æolian Skinner and many others had it not been for its capable management team.

One of my favorite books on management is Only the Paranoid Survive, by Intel co-founder Andy Grove.

[michaelhoddy]

The Callahan book mentioned above is a great read if you can find a reasonably-priced copy. I bought mine used somewhere, but had to watch for a while for one to come up at a good price.

It's melancholy and a lesson to business owners and operators of all kinds everywhere. A combination of a lot of factors as already mentioned above- not keeping a handle on true project costs, operating, overhead and infrastructure costs that turned upside down, some flights of fancy not related to the core business, the changing whims of the American organ style in the Organ Reform movement and away from Aeolian-Skinner's core American Classic style, and, as gtc mentions so aptly above, an inability to properly and efficiently scale the business.

One or even a few of these factors were probably survivable, but all of them together were not.