Klarinet Archive - Posting 000109.txt from 1996/06

From: Mitch Bassman <mbassman@-----.COM>
Subj: Buying clarinets in the 60s [was: Re: your mail]
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 14:30:58 -0400

On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Gary Van Cott wrote:
> Fred (fsheim@-----.com) wrote:
> > My folks paid $188 for my R13 in December 1963- I paid $500 for my R13A in
> > 1977!- both new! How times have changed! Got the Bb at Silver and Horland
> > in lower Manhattan and the A at Manny's in Manhattan.
> >
> Your parents must have been good shoppers. Wasn't the list price of
> professional clarinets about $400 in the mid-1960s? And discounts
> were much harder to come by then.

You're right on. The list price for a Buffet R13 Bb was about $400 when I
bought mine for $240 at Ponte's in NYC in 1967. (My A came from Manny's a
couple of years later.) No one should ever pay more than 60% of list price
for a new instrument.

Mitch Bassman "Treat friends as family and family
mbassman@-----." -- Somebody's mother