Klarinet Archive - Posting 000345.txt from 2011/01

From: "Dan Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Tolchin-Allard
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:34:24 -0500

Please!!! Calm down with all those high prices.

I was living in Paris in 1962. Over the period of one year I bought a low C bass clarinet for $245, a basset horn for $210, and a full Boehm A clarinet for $96. Before I moved back to the U.S., I topped it off with a full Boehm E-flat clarinet for $110. Prices had gone up slightly by then.

In 1962-1965, the French government allowed tax free purchases when payment was made in U.S. dollars. It was only 7 years after the end of WW2 and that kind of stimulus was needed to restore stability to a number of the European currencies including the French Franc, which had been stabilized by a 10 to 1 conversion. When one bought an item, the most important question had to do with paying in new Franc instead of the old Franc.

I only stopped buying when I ran out of need. But in retrospect, I should have bought an A bass. By the time I got around to it many years later it cost somewhere around $4,000 for one.

Dan Leeson
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