Irmler had achieved a good profitable export business, particularly to North America, and they also had a steady home market. However, as other German makers were invading their home territories, Irmler quickly had to develop more aggressive tactics in selling their pianos and keep apace with the most advanced ideas of the time. In 1861 they introduced stream-driven works in their factory. Later that same year Otto died, leaving the running of the factory to his younger brother, Oswald. The success that followed marked Irmler as one of Germany’s finest makers of pianos and by the turn of  the century they had been honored by the courts of the emperor of Austria and the kings of Wurttemberg, Sweden, and Romania.

Oswald died in 1905, leaving the firm in the very capable hands of his sons, Emil and Otto. Irmler carried on producing pianos independently until the 1950s. Today they are made in Asia and European factories under the name Irmler Europe and imported into the United States by German Piano Imports.

Dates and serial numbers when the pianos were manufactured