The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Leon
Date: 2006-04-07 19:18
I am restarting to play clarinet and found what looks like a nice instrument - a wood Pierre DuMont from Paris clarinet with a serial number on it. I have found little help in websearching. Any comments as to the worth of giving it a freshening up?
Thanks,
Leon
Leon S. DilPare
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Author: corks&pads
Date: 2006-04-07 21:22
Hi Leon -
I've also got a Pierre DuMont that I can only guess was made in the late 40s or early 50s. I haven't been able to find out much about the clarinet itself, but from the features and quality of construction, I think that it was intended to be a high-end student instrument or even a low-units-run post-war professional instrument that was produced as a stencil or under an off-brand name for some reason.
After WWII, it appears that one of the ways that the US helped to boost the French economy was by contracting instruments for US Military bands ... LOTS of instruments! Many of the large-name manufacturers apparently filled those contracts with good instruments, but without their own company name on them. (To keep the market from flooding with their brand name horns? Who knows, for sure?).
Anyway, there are lots of horns one the market that few people recognize, and therefore have little sales value, but which turn out to be real "sleepers." I look forward to seeing how my own P. Dumont will sound--when I find the time to restore it.
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