The York War Years
York Band Instrument Company, like many other band instrument companies, stopped making musical instruments in 1943-1944 to help support the war effort. There is a gap in the serial number production during these years. Up until this war time advertisement was found on the internet, it wasn't exactly known what York made.
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Turns out the York company was the exclusive supplier of Vernier Automatic Throttle Controls, which are apparently a small device that would be used in a vehicle to electronically control another part of the vehicle. The ad has the picture to show the kind of control that York produced. The following is a definition from Wikipedia:
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"A vernier throttle is a throttle often used in aircraft. It uses a cable and a screw mechanism to provide the operator precise control over an engine's operation. The concept is similar in use to vernier calipers which have a primary scale for gross measurements, and a secondary scale for fine measurements. Like many other inventions that bear his name, the Vernier throttle is based on the work of mathematician Pierre Vernier.
Vernier throttles are commonly used in aircraft. A similar mechanism is also used in reciprocating (gasoline) aircraft engines to set the mixture to an appropriate value for a given altitude."
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The York Band Instrument Company was at this time owned by Carl Fischer. This ad is from 1943, and it is interesting to note the factory now had the large York letters on the roof and the extensions to the northside had not been built yet. This also wasn't known before this ad was discovered.
The pictures on the right show modern preserved WWII vehicles that the advertisement claims to have supplied with parts from the York factory in Grand Rapids, MI!
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