 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2010-11-21 16:44
From Micky Rasmussen, Assistant Curator, National Music Museum
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Dear Mr. Mark Charette:
I am an assistant curator at the National Music Museum. I am currently compiling the information that the Museum has on the C. G. Conn Company into a database. I came across your information about the Pan American "Violin Finish" Clarinet. According to the brochures, flyers and price lists that we have this light colored violin finish for wood clarinets first was started in the Spring of 1950 and the last mention of it is in January 18, 1954.
Here are my sources.
Pan American "The Baton" Newsletter, Spring 1950. Lists "Violin Finish" Clarinet Model 68N for $120.00.
Listed as a new item in the C. G. Conn, Ltd. Annual Report to Stockholders for the Year Ending April 30, 1950.
Mentioned in December 1951, June 8, 1953 and January 18, 1954 price lists.
I hope this information is of some assistance to you.
Take care and keep playing,
Micky Rasmussen
Assistant Curator, National Music Museum
Vermillion, SD
http://www.usd.edu/smm
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-11-21 21:44
"Violin Finish" is almost certainly what many people call "Propeller Wood," which looks like a light-colored wood with a distinct grain.
Ken Shaw
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-11-21 23:49
Those clarinets were made of a wood laminate (plywood, basically) --- which is their downfall -- they tend to delaminate. Nice looking, though.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-11-22 00:46
They're *also* made in wood-grained all-plastic. I've had a hard time convincing people that these exist, but I've had a chance to examine a couple of them, at the Georgetown flea market and also at the D. C. Big Flea, and there's no doubt they're solid plastic. At a glance, they could easily be mistaken for the laminated "violin finish" wood that we've been calling "propeller wood." The plastic ones I saw were in hard cases covered in two-tone green and white plastic, identical to the case for my first clarinet, a wooden 1957 Conn Director that my father bought for me new.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-11-22 16:47
Lelia -
On plastic, the wood grain pattern would have to be paint or a decal. I assume it's also applied to wood clarinets, rather than the pattern being part of the wood.
On plastic recorders with a wood grain finish, this soon wears off. What has been your experience with the Pan American clarinets?
Ken Shaw
Post Edited (2010-11-22 16:49)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-11-22 18:58
>> On plastic, the wood grain pattern would have to be paint or a decal.>>
No, I'm sure these clarinets are solid plastic with the wood grain pattern all the way through it. You can see in the tenon sockets and in the bell that the pattern goes all the way through. It's not an applied surface decoration. The first one I saw completely fooled me into thinking it was wood until I picked it up and it didn't feel like wood and was lighter in weight than wood -- so I looked closer. In fact, that's one way you can spot these clarinets as plastic quickly: with the pattern all the way through, they're not laminated as the wooden "violin finish" clarinets are.
This type of plastic for cutting and boring has been available for decades. It's manufactured by swirling different colors together before the plastic hardens. It's not rare. Collectors buy vintage jewelry, kitchen and decorative items in Art Deco and "streamlined" styles from the 1940s and 1950s, made from plastic with a wood grain or other design integral to the material. Some of these boxes, beads, pendants, bowls, plates, drinking glasses and even statuettes and thick table-tops are translucent. You can see the pattern going all the way through the plastic.
The earlier (very brittle) plastic, Bakelite, also came in swirled and patterned blanks. Up until the late 1950s, when "plastic" became a dirty word for "cheap and fake" (as in the 1960s acid-rock song, "Plastic Fantastic Lover"), plastic was a popular medium for the serious arts and crafts industry, and it's coming back now.
My husband makes fountain pens as a hobby. He mostly uses wood, but he also buys plastic blanks in exotic patterns, from an arts and crafts supply shop (Woodworkers 2, in Springfield, Virginia). The swirls of color go all the way through. Same goes for hard rubber. My husband buys broken vintage lawn-bowling balls (smaller than bowling balls) at yard sales and slices them up for making hard rubber pens. The color mixture goes all the way through those as well.
To clarify: I don't own any of these "violin finish" clarinets (either wood or plastic). I've only examined them when I've seen them for sale. Despite the exotic appearance, the manufacturing looks like student quality to me. The logos are not C. G. Conn logos. They're from the period after C. G. Conn's widow had sold the Conn name. The brand went downhill -- and I've already got a storage problem.
I think it's possible that the solid plastic "violin finish" clarinets might be better than the ones made of real, laminated wood. The ones I've seen that were made of real wood had the de-lamination problem. The plastic ones seem to hold up better. However, I'm an amateur and I don't have enough experience with these clarinets to start pontificating about their quality for music-making.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2010-11-22 19:14)
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2010-11-22 19:19
Lelia Loban wrote:
> (as in the
> 1960s acid-rock song, "Plastic Fantastic Lover"),
Ah, one of my favorites; A fine balledeer ("Coming Back to Me") who just happened to do acid rock "once in a while", Marty Balin. Joined by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady (another fine guitarist and a bass player I studied for years!) in a great live version
But I digress yet again.
Thanks
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Author: madvax
Date: 2010-11-24 00:34
Great info. Thanks for posting.
I have one of these in excellent condition and I think it plays pretty well.
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Author: Reedirect
Date: 2010-11-24 13:12
Hi Lelia:
Very interesting. Do pictures exist of the plastic clarinets? I own a few "Propeller Wood" Pan Ams. All made of cocobolo plywood. One is in a decent overhauled state and aside from some wear without any issues. Two still wait for an overhaul but both don't have any issues with the wood. One clarinet was in a very poor state when I bought it and that indeed showed some delamination of the plywood. Fortunately, it was all minor and could be fixed with acrylate adhesive. Consequently, these instruments are defnitely not undestroyable, but on the other hand obviously quite resistant to wooden cracks even if handled roughly. In my experience, the plywood protects the clarinet from suffering a deep crack going down to the bore as seen in some solid grenadilla or rosewood instruments.
Although being considered student clarinets back then when they were new on the market in the early 50s they sound very nice and mellow and are a pleasure to play. You wouldn't find them in a concert hall though.
Best
Jo
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