Bandmasters were made in Easten Germany. The instruments were very cheap here in the UK and the instruments were poorly finnished. The 10 hole diatonic had a slightly different layout from the Richter tuning we all know. The Bandmaster factory was heaverly sponsored to export in order to bring in hard cash from the west. Now that Germany is unified this sponsorship has, as I understand it, come to an end. I know that a lot of the musical products from Easten Germany, as was, has stoped being showen in UK catalogues. What has happened to the production plant I do not know. Though there are some pockets of Bandmaster supplies in the UK I know of no firm here curently bringing in new supplies. I think Hohner also badged a harmonica by that name but it did have the Hohner name on as well-David
