The Celluloid Piano Key Company was founded in 1878, and licensed by the Celluloid Manufacturing Company on December 12, 1878 (Lauer and Robinson, 12), two days after the establishment by John Wesley Hyatt of U.S. patent 210,780 for the “Improvement of Piano-Keys.”

The Celluloid Manufacturing Company made a policy of licensing the use of Celluloid and Hyatt patents to other companies for the production and distribution of products made from Celluloid. Hyatt had invented the Celluloid piano key as a replacement for traditional ivory keys. The invention really consisted of two important components. First, it allowed celluloid or any other plastic to be used instead of ivory to cover the top of a wooden piano key. Secondly, it allowed a large sheet of Celluloid to be affixed to a board which would then be sawed into individual keys, saving manufacturers the time consuming work of cutting and gluing small pieces for each key. In the coming decade Celluloid keys joined ivory in the marketplace, but never commanded the largest market share.

The Celluloid Piano Key Company was located at 216 Centre Street in New York. Advertisements in 1880 in The Musical Critic and Trade Review indicate that it manufactured and sold “Celluloid for piano, organ and melodeon keys.” At the time, the company claimed that the Celluloid key “never turns yellow, discolors, shrinks or warps” and that over 100,000 sets of celluloid keys were in use.

According to historian Robert Friedel, the celluloid keys were considered highly satisfactory and in a patent suit of 1882 by the Celluloid Manufacturing co. and The Celluloid Piano Key Company vs. The Pratt, reed Co. and the Comstock, Cheney & Co. evidence was accepted that they “drove out ivory and supplanted it almost entirely…though ivory sets were sold cheaper the celluloid from 1880-81.” But in 1916 it was reported “that in a normal year (the example being 1913), the amount of celluloid used for piano keys amounted to only 8 percent of the total of ivory or ivorylike material used for keys.” The cost difference between ivory and celluloid keys was not significant. (Friedel, 62-63).

See:

Ad, The Musical Critic and Trade Review (Sept.5, 1880)

“Celluloid Manufg Co. and another v. Pratt and others. Same v. Comstook and others,” The Federal Reporter: cases argued and determined in the circuit and district courts of the United States, vol. 21 (July 31, 1884).

Friedel, Robert Pioneer Plastic: The Making and Selling of Celluloid (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 61-62.

"Improvement in Piano-keys," United States Patent # 210,780

Lauer, Keith & Robinson, Julie. Celluloid: Collector’s Reference and Value Guide (Paducah, KY: Collector’s Books, 1999.), 12.