Recently, I wrote a post about eBay eMiracles. This is the story of my eBay eMiracle:
When my great uncle, Willie Berg, the founder of Humes & Berg (H&B), died in the 1996, I went in search of one of his original H&B Stone Lined mutes. There are thousands of used H&B mutes on the market, but I wanted one made before they were mass produced at Willie's factory in Indiana. I wanted one made by Willie's own hands. Of the thousands of H&B mutes made since the day when the legendary musician Glen Miller
asked my great uncle to come up with a device that would change the tonal quality of horn instruments, perhaps only a handful remain that were hand-made by Willie and his wife, Faye, in their cramped Chicago apartment.
When I saw a beat-up old mute being offered in an auction on eBay
, I contacted the seller and asked if, by chance, the H&B mute label said Chicago, Ill. After a decade-long search, my prayers were finally answered! When I called my 90-year-old great aunt to tell her what I'd found, she asked me if the red line painted across the top of the mute was crooked. When I told her it was, she replied, "I painted the mutes by hand in those days, and I could never get the lines straight." Bless her heart.
Recently, I wrote a post about eBay eMiracles. This is the story of my eBay eMiracle: