 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-10-09 18:56
Attachment: R13.jpg (248k)
I am currently working on a 1945 Pre R13 Bb for a customer and was surprised to find R13 stamped under the keys on both upper and lower joints. Check oout the photo of the lower joint under the left hand G# key.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-10-09 21:43
That could be a factory number that's coincidentally 13 R (but not R13).
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-10-10 00:02
Having trouble downloading the upper joint stamp which does say R13.
Post Edited (2016-10-10 00:12)
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-10-10 00:10
Attachment: #2.jpg (40k)
Here is a photo of the upper joint which is stamped R13. Still not working.
Post Edited (2016-10-10 00:13)
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-10-10 00:15
Attachment: R13 2.jpg (58k)
Last try. You can see that the stamps (font) are exactly alike on the upper joint and lower joint.
Post Edited (2016-10-10 00:18)
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2016-10-10 00:46
What may have happened is someone stamped it. Perhaps changing the straight bore of the pre R13's? You could measure it or have it measured by a decent repairman. There's really not much to measuring it.
To my inexperienced knowledge no Buffets have ever been stamped with R13's on them. I saw Marcellus's horns, they did not have anything written on them, pre-R13's. Hans Moennig I think did most of his major work.
If you kind of look closely the stamping isn't very straight. Maybe a seller from the past wanted to make a few extra bucks and called it an R13?
So all of this is just a guess, but it fits.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-10-10 01:30
Kal Opperman explained this to me. Prior to the introduction of the R13 (1955), an individual workman would make all the keys for a particular clarinet, grinding and then filing each key from blocks of german silver. Each key was hand-fitted to match the others. This was a slow process demanding great skill. As a mark of pride, each key maker would stamp his mark in a particular inconspicuous spot, usually on the underside, but sometimes elsewhere, for example inside a pad cup.
This is the reason the keys on pre-R13s are not interchangeable.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-10-10 01:57
French instrument makers were at the forefront of instrument making and were far more advanced than that long before the '50s. They were already using cast, stamped, extruded, milled and machined components for most key pieces just as makers are doing today (although now increasingly more keys are cast as single pieces), but the castings still needed to be filed and smoothed down before they could be used.
The days of laboriously hand making touchpieces and other key pieces from solid lumps of nickel silver had mostly disappeared by the early part of the 20th Century and a high volume maker like Buffet would've used the latest production techniques.
Before the '70s, each clarinet had the keywork mounted specifically to each individual instrument by the mounters at a much earlier stage in production which made them all unique rather than the modern way where the batches of prefabricated keys (already plated, padded and corked) and ready pillared, sprung and corked joints finally coming together at the end of the production line to be fitted and adjusted by the finishers.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-10-10 04:11
This is a 1945 instrument. It seems to me that I read here that Buffet used the R13 as a catalog number not a model number sometime before 1955 and perhaps this stamp signifies this.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2016-10-10 04:41
The model number wouldn't be hidden like that if it was a model number.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-10-10 04:43
Until 1955, Buffet had only one model and put no name or number on it. The American catalogue (but not the French) used the designation R13 for the standard 17/6 instrument. Those with additional keys got a higher number such as R14. Only when the polycylindrical model appeared in 1955 did Buffet Paris start calling it the R13.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2016-10-10 05:28
I've heard that, as Clarineteer says above, that Buffet used the designation R13 as a factory identifier long before it was coincidentally used as a model identifier. The instruments identified as such were not what we know as R13's.
Tony F.
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Author: AndyW
Date: 2016-10-11 13:27
i have a "Pre R13 " from circa 1937, I'll be happy to take a look later this week for similar marks, which I've not noticed up 'til now.
-A-
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2016-10-11 17:39
These Pre R13's are really under rated and under appreciated. Research indicates that both Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw played Pre R13's late in their careers.
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