Collecting Musical instruments - Rück for instance

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The Rück collection in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (GNM), founded in 1880 has been the largest German collection of historical musical instruments in private ownership. From 1929 onward, Ulrich Rück, son of the collection founder, documented virtually all activities in a painstakingly precise correspondence with 1,022 partners. The comprehensiveness and detailed documentation within the 17,200 letters and postcards classifies it as unique source about the genesis of a collection of cultural objects between the Great Depression and the so-called Economic Miracle. Together with ca. 1.500 musical instruments and further material, the correspondence was purchased by GNM in 1962. Of particular importance is Rück's exchange with experts. Up to 1943, he asked, as a paid service before important acquisitions, the advice of the Cologne-based musicologist Georg Kinsky resp. the musical instrument conservator Adolf Hartmann in Berlin about quality and market prices. Together with the letters concerning the following deal, these documents allow for the first time to establish a price list for historic musical instruments between 1929 and 1962. Together with research results about the acquisition circumstances and the immediate pre-owners, this information will be published on-line. Further subjects of investigation which will be published as a monograph are the strategies of collecting, communication and marketing that made the collection part of a European network.