The Steel Guitar Forum

A German company, Thomann, sell a few lap steels under the name Harley Benton. They sell the usual generic far eastern model which appears under many brand names but they market two, well one really, that are made in Germany, the Slider 6 & the Slider 8( I’m sure you can work that part out for yourselves). The thing is the earlier models have the letters “ABM” on the fret board in the first fret position, presumably the makers name or mark, whereas later models have “EBM” .Does anyone know the story of why the change?

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The Slider 6 & 8 are featured on the ABM web site, however, I see that the Slider 6 at least now has an EBM badge; I personally think that the company has either changed hands or renamed/branded itself.
STOP PRESS.
It appears that the owner of ABM recently passed away and that the company was sold, one can only surmise that the new company is now EBM. Does that make my ABM more valuable?
Cheers,
Chris.

Sussed it! It seems the Slider models where designed by Erich Baum, son of German Steeler Frank Baum, when he worked for ABM. When ABM ceased trading after the death of the owner Klaus Müller, Erich started production with his own company Erich Baum Musikinstrumente (EBM). See links for more info.Stevehttp://www.pedalpro.co.uk/folderIndex/f ... aum01.html
http://www.eb-musikinstrumente.de/ueber_uns.html