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"Victory" Tremolo Harmonica
Object/Artifact
Tremolo (double-row) mouth-organ harmonica. The visible face is a nickel/chrome-plated sheet-metal cover plate, engraved and stipple-stamped with the brand and origin, held by a shaped end clamp secured with a slotted screw at each end. A red-painted wood comb shows at the ends and along the base, with a long row of double holes (tremolo configuration) on the lower edge (a comparable Smithsonian example has 14 double holes / 28 reeds). The cover is heavily scratched from use.
2025.13.1
Belonged to Yasiel Pavon, who brought it with him to the United States when he emigrated in 1996.
The "Victory" harmonica is a well-known mid-20th-century Shanghai export product; comparable examples are held by museums and are widely dated by collectors to the 1960s.
Yasiel Pavon collection
2025.13
Gift
Shanghai
People's Republic of China
Asia
Victory
Manufacturer: an unidentified Shanghai harmonica manufacturer under the "Victory" brand (the specific factory is not established; the Smithsonian records its Victory example as by an unknown Shanghai maker) — attribution tentative. Date: circa 1960s–1970s — collector consensus favors the 1960s; museum cataloging lists the date as undetermined. Tentative.
Engraving
top
Victory Harmonica Shanghai China
English
Etched
Cover plate, engraved/stipple-stamped (with translations in brackets): two Chinese characters in stippled relief at left — the brand name, not confidently transcribed from this image (tentative) — accompanied by smaller characters reading "口琴" [harmonica] (tentative); "Victory" in script; "HARMONICA"; "中國 上海 SHANGHAI, CHINA" [China · Shanghai]; and a model/catalog code at lower left, only partially legible, approximately "HG 521" / "UC 521" (first characters ambiguous; compare the Smithsonian example coded "UCO30"). Numerous surface scratches (use wear).
13 cm
2.5 cm
(1) nickel/chrome-plated metal cover plate(s); (2) red-painted wood comb; (3) brass reed plates (inferred, not directly visible); (4) two shaped end clamps with screws.
Metal
Nickel/chrome-plated steel or brass (cover and clamps); painted wood (comb); brass reeds (inferred); steel screws.
Poor
Yasiel Pavon
owner
Las Tunas
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
acquisition, use
West New York
New Jersey
U.S.A.
North America
use
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History holds a comparable Victory model harmonica made by an unknown maker in Shanghai, China, of undetermined date, with 14 double holes and 28 reeds, a red painted wood comb and metal cover plates, engraved with a code, Chinese characters, "Victory HARMONICA SHANGHAI CHINA".