Klarinet Archive - Posting 000204.txt from 2002/01

From: Kenneth Wolman <kenneth.wolman@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] The name game
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 18:07:13 -0500

At 04:50 PM 1/8/2002 -0500, Dave Spiegelthal wrote:
>....I just bought a superb
>"Buescher BU-6" baritone sax which, while distributed by Selmer USA, is
>made in
>Taiwan (and thus costs less than half of comparable Yamaha, Yanagisawa, and
>Keilwerth saxes). And many small (and large!) American musical instrument
>retailers have recently come out with their own 'house brands', the vast
>majority of which are Asian-made, for better or worse. Thus my suspicions!

The name-game again. I only found out recently that the Buescher name
indeed was revived after quite a few years of dormancy. Analogies with
Dracula and the Frankenstein monster come to mind. There were rumors a few
years ago this was going to happen, and I may even have heard them from Joe
Sax of Joe Sax Woodwinds, the man from whom I purchased my Buescher
Aristocrat alto back in February 1999. The horn he sold me was a "student
grade" instrument using the Aristocrat model name. It was, he said, one of
the last American Bueschers made, and was manufactured after Selmer had
acquired the right to the Buescher mark. Student grade instrument or not,
high serial number and all, the horn is built like a tank and plays
beautifully. It is an extremely plain-looking instrument--there is almost
no carving or adorning in the bell.

The problem is that I stopped playing it in August 2000, and tried to sell
it last month via eBay in hopes it would go to a good home. The bids I
received for it, "bundled" with mouthpieces that equalled the price of the
instrument itself, were a joke. I see now that potential buyers may have
been scared off by the association of Buescher with offshore manufacturing
plants that cookie-cut cheap horns for half a dozen other companies like
Winston and Jean Baptiste.

It was also from Joe Sax that I learned that Prestini Reed, which
supposedly American-made my soprano sax, actually assembled the instrument
in Nogales from parts made in Taiwan but "under US quality control,"
whatever that's supposed to mean. This also came as an apparent surprise
to Roberto's Woodwinds in New York, which sold me the Prestini--they seemed
to be under the impression they were selling on-shore goods. Prestini's
marketing department grudgingly admitted the offshore/onshore routine to me
when I asked the question directly via an email. You will note if you look
at their homepage that they no longer market musical instruments: they're
strictly in the reed business these days.

Footnote--when I moved down to the Shore in August 2000, the Buescher
survived the truckride very nicely. The Prestini literally rattled apart
in its OE case and needed to have all the rods reattached. It wasn't an
expensive job but it says something about workmanship.

"Bottom line" is I'm not thrilled that a company with Selmer's name and
reputation is cutting a corner this huge by lending itself to potential
chintz. Selmer USA perhaps didn't mean the same thing as Selmer Paris but
it didn't mean Made for Under Minimum Wage by people who might not know
what they're doing, either. This is part of a growing industry that is
bringing us, among other things, Irish, Northumbrian, and Scottish bagpipes
made in Pakistan.

Ken
---------------------
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them.
D. H. Lawrence, "The Hands of God"

Kenneth Wolman http://www.kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org