Klarinet Archive - Posting 000087.txt from 1999/09

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Bundy Wood Body Clarinet
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 14:16:02 -0400

I maundered,
>...However, if this is a Bb clarinet, and especially if it's an old
>one, but from the time after Selmer acquired Bundy (by "old" I mean circa
>1950s through 1960s, since that's when a lot of those wood-and-plastic
>hybrids appeared on the market), then it may be a truly ghastly
instrument...
>

Bill Hausmann wrote,
>>Bundy has pretty much ALWAYS been owned by Selmer, or even the other way
around. George M. Bundy FOUNDED Selmer, USA, back in the 1920's or so, to
import Selmer instruments from France.>>

Thanks for the correction. I wrote it backwards (had Selmer's acquisition of
Buescher in the back of my mind). Another clarification: Because Selmer USA
and Paris Selmer are related but different companies, the French Selmer
serial numbers are useless in dating Bundies or other American Selmers; and
that's why I suggested all those ways of trying to date the instrument,
instead of just looking it up. I probably also should have mentioned, in
case this clarinet might be even older than 1950s-era, that old wood and
metal clarinets turn up with the "Geo. M. Bundy" logo on them but no Selmer
markings. The ones I've seen looked as if they dated from the 1920s and
1930s (to judge from the cases). I've never played one and am curious what
people who have played them think of them. Those are "vintage" clarinets,
interesting to people who collect that sort of thing, but not probably not
suitable for a beginner today, IMHO. I guess it's possible to mistake one of
these for a modern Bundy, especially if the old case got replaced with a
modern one -- another reason to ask a non-beginner to look at the instrument.
Selmer USA began making its own saxes in Elkhart, Indiana (instead of
stencilling the Selmer N.Y. name onto Bueschers and Conns) in 1927,
evidently, but I don't know whether any clarinets continued with the "Bundy"
label but no Selmer markings after that or exactly when production stopped on
the Bundy clarinets with no Selmer markings.

Lelia

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