Klarinet Archive - Posting 000171.txt from 1997/04

From: Kathy Beatty <kbeatty@-----.COM>
Subj: Delurking, keywork question
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997 17:40:18 -0500

Hello all,

I'm delurking, after having spent several weeks perusing all of your
contributions to the klarinet list. My name is Kathy Beatty, and I have
recently taken up playing again at the age of 43, having stopped playing
way back in 1970 when I was sophomore in high school. Now that I'm
playing again (practicing, really), I've been extremely delighted to
find all the various clarinet resources on the Web, including this list
and the marvelous clarinet resource web site brought to us by Mark
Charette et. al. (thanks to Mika Systems, too!).

Anyway, when I decided to start playing again (in Jan. this year), my
old clarinet was not playable (a broken Eb key, a couple of broken
springs, rotting pads), so I decided to rent an instrument from a local
band supplier, Flesher-Hinton. They rented me a Vito model 7212. After a
couple of weeks of playing this instrument, I decided I really didn't
like
the sound of the plastic instrument, so for about $200 got my old wooden
clarinet fixed.

To make a long story shorter, a lot of the information on the Web got me
interested in trying to find out about the history of this instrument. I
think I've already exhausted all the Web resources on this, but I'm
still
not sure about the make of my instrument, marked "EXCELLA" on the bell,
marked "MADE IN FRANCE" on the rest, with a serial #2276 and a 5-pointed
star maker's mark above the thumbrest. Scott Hirsch (of Windworld Trade
Names fame) thinks this maker's mark may have been that of August
Buffet, but an inquiry to Buffet-Crampon makes me doubt it is a Buffet
clarinet, since they state that all Buffet clarinets would be clearly
marked
as such. I've owned this instrument since approximately 1965. My father
bought it for me, used of course, from a NYC pawn shop.

Any, this leads me (at last) to the keywork question. The rings on this
clarinet have "edges", they are not rounded, such that each ring has an
edge which is cleanly parallel to the chimney of the hole. I've never
seen
another clarinet with this style keywork, but of course I haven't seen
all
*that* many clarinets. Anyway, I was wondering whether anyone on this
list
may have seen this style keywork, and if so, do you know what kind of
clarinet it was?

Also, does anyone know anything about the "EXCELLA" trade name?

Thanks,
Kathy Beatty