There is a thread here someplace about the Washburn, but here’s the gist of it again. Lyon & Healy decided sometime back in the 1920’s or maybe even earlier to sell some of their harps to retail music stores. But they wanted to keep the Lyon & Healy name for themselves and for sales directly from the factory. So they came up with the name Washburn. I’m not sure how they chose that name. The action plate has the name Washburn etched into it, and the serial number is a separate list from the Lyon & Healy list. But the action plate also says in several places that this is a Lyon & Healy harp and that it is made by Lyon & Healy. All of the Washburn harps were smaller student models, usually style 15 or style 16 harps. They were the same models, with no changes, as the smaller straight soundboard models available at the time in the Lyon & Healy line. I’m guessing that production of the Washburn harp ended at WWII when the whole factory closed down for the duration of the war.

L&H serial # 1005 was completed in Jan. 1911.

I have a L&H Washburn J. I contacted L&H and was given info that the Washburn line was made for only a few years; from 1910-1914. http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1913-57-3/MTR-1913-57-3-28.pdf

Check out this link. It’s a trade paper from 1913. My 1912 instrument is not only beautiful with it’s bronze column, the tone is large and very warm. And… because of the lighter tension… it is nice to my arthritis. : ) I wonder if the example you refer to is a J… In that case it was probably built in 1911.