Horn-u-Copia's Display of Makers

• 1900 Maurice Henry Berlin (Berlinberg) (1895-1984) emigrates to Detroit from Russia
• 1910 Maurice working as stock boy in store in Chicago
• 1920 Maurice establishes Chicago Musical Instrument Co. and is naturalized this year
• 1921 CMIC at #602 W. North Ave, Chicago
• 1930 Maurice Berlin, wholesale musical merchant, home at #7360 Suley Ave, Chicago
• 1931 CMIC at #311 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago
• 1940 Maurice now living in Glenco, musical instrument exec.
• 1942 CMIC at #30 E. Adams St.
• 1944 CMIC buys Gibson guitars After WWII CMIC buys Olds & Son and hires F.A. Reynolds to oversee
• 1957 CMIC buys Epiphone guitars
• 1964 CMIC buys the Reynolds Co.
• 1969 CMIC merges with ECL to form Norlin Corp. with Norton Stevens and Maurice’s son Arnold Berlin (1924-?)
• 1979 Norlin sells Reynolds & Olds
• 1984 Maurice dies
• 1986 Norlin sells Gibson to a private company

Early brass instruments sold by CMIC are the American Student and Harmony models made by B&F in Czechoslovakia.

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