 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Susan M.
Date: 2003-02-15 18:35
Have Penzel Mueller clarinet and want to know age. Figure checking serial number will work. Anyone know where I can find serial numbers of Penzel Mueller clarinets so I can determine age?
Thanks
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2003-02-15 19:40
I'm somewhat familiar w: P - M's, does yours have a model name, Artist, Brilliante, etc ? They, in NYC [L I], made good cls from about 1900 to about 1950, I have a 1920's Full Boehm 20/7, a good friend has an Artist 17/6, still loves it. Yours is prob. quite good , but a bit old. Search the Phorum for lots of info. Don
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Author: nzdonald
Date: 2003-02-16 19:42
i have an embarassing admission to make- i'd love a PM clarinet.... just because of the name (i know that that's not a good reason to buy a clarinet). PENZEL MUELLER.... it just sounds so... so neat. An former student of mine had one of these- a retired man in Cincinnati (Bob) and he had formerly played in a predominantly Jazz style, but learnt classical from me and eventually performed the Weber Concertino. i guess that for me PM also evokes a (happy) memory of this guy enjoying music so much with his old, beloved clarinet.
donal
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Author: jim lande
Date: 2003-02-17 01:44
These days I am using a Penzel Muller double walled metal clarinet that was restored by Eric Satterly. (eBay, of course.) It has 7 rings, the fifth left hand pinkie key, an articulated C#/G# and the extra banana key for those notes. It has a serial number in the 300s. It is called the Clari-met. I also have restored a single walled Clari-met, which is pretty good, but not as good. (Could be the result of my work compared with Eric's or his use of treated bladder pads vs my white kit leather.) Anyway, I am pretty sure that both of these date from the late 1920s or early 1930s
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Author: 1776J
Date: 2009-12-23 22:37
I'm looking at a Penzel Mueller.
It is an "Artist" model and the serial number is 17478.
Any ideas on its age?
Thank you.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2009-12-24 13:33
I believe the P-M "Artist Model" dates from the 1940s-50s. I've restored three of these so far (two wood versions and one metal) and have at least three more on my shelves (two metal and a wood) awaiting attention. They are good clarinets.
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Author: Molloy
Date: 2009-12-24 15:38
"I believe the P-M "Artist Model" dates from the 1940s-50s."
Maybe 1930s, too. Before the Artist, PM's don't have a model name. In the 1960s (and maybe 50s) they had many models. Later PMs are sometimes stencils made in France or Czechoslovakia.
"It is an "Artist" model and the serial number is 17478."
That's primo Penzel Mueller, in my opinion. Artist models with serials in the 16000's and 17000's are superb instruments. If they weren't a little flat on the bell notes (low E, middle B) I'd say they were perfect.
"Anyone know where I can find serial numbers of Penzel Mueller clarinets so I can determine age?"
Based on my observations, I'd guess PM used a numeric serial until number 18000 or so, then switched to alphanumeric formats X####Y, ####Y and X####, where the final Y is either an A or B indicating pitch and the inital X is the letter K, L or M indicating sequence of production.
In *very* rough terms, a PM with a 3- or 4-digit serial is 'early' (before WW2), with a 5-digit serial is 'middle' (around WW2), and with an alphanumeric serial is 'late' (after WW2).
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-12-24 16:13
I have a Penzel Mueller Artist model metal clarinet. It's ok. It has several problems that IMO make it not really a good clarinet. The main one is VERY flat low E and F. Also some inconsistency throughout the registers but not terrible. Intonation otherwise ok, not great. There are some mechanical and ergononic issues too. Not considering price, I would recommend instead a good "modern" student clarinet e.g. Yamaha, etc. if this was an option.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2009-12-24 22:05
Flat low E and F should never be grounds for rejection of a clarinet, as that characteristic can almost always be mitigated or even eliminated by the judicious drilling of a vent hole in the bell (which also lowers the 'long' low clarion B and C, but by a much lesser amount).
Boosey & Hawkes clarinets have that characteristic as well. I overhaul lots of them and they nearly always leave here with a shiny new hole in their bell.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2009-12-25 06:03
I didn't "reject" the PM clarinet I have, and it's not just the low F and (especially) E that is the reason I consider other clarinets better. To clarify, even if the E and F were in tune I would still prefer something like a student Yamaha.
Re the bell vent hole, I experimented with this and added one to my PM clarinet. On this clarinet the long B and C were a little flat too so especially no problem with raising them some. But there are some problems. First the location is important. Then, if the hole is small it will be very good to exactly raise the E and also the F a bit. But on the PM the notes were so flat that even a vent hole didn't help much at all. Actually they were much flatter than on any clarinet I've ever tried.
By the time the vent hole was close to correcting the pitch the clarinet "thought" the new hole was the E/B tone hole as opposed to the bell. The tone was very thin from a small tone hole by the time the pitch was anywhere near acceptable. So what is actually necessary on this clarinet is not a regular vent hole, but instead a big open tone hole lower down the bell, essentially making the bell shorter (which I guess it should have been in the first place). Also the tone holes under the F/C key and especailly the E/B key should have been slightly higher on the clarinet.
By the way antoher identical PM aritst I've tried also was exactly the same in every way.
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Author: Molloy
Date: 2009-12-25 14:06
I've got a couple of *metal* PM Artist clarinets that I picked up cheap at the auction site. I haven't bothered to have them overhauled because they look like mid-grade (not pro-grade) metal clarinets to me, despite the PM Artist name.
My *wood* PM Artists (I have three in playable condition, also picked up cheap at the auction site) all share the flat-E-and-B condition. F and C really aren't bad and the intonation is good elsewhere, and they are the 'friendliest' clarinets I've ever played. I've always thought that a bell hole would pretty much solve their problems, but the collector in me doesn't want to deface a well-preserved instrument so I've been waiting around to get extra bells to experiment on.
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