 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Kontra
Date: 2010-11-02 20:35
Yesterday I went to an antique store and saw a horn for a VERY low price in full working condition. I came back today with some money and it was gone. I'm a little irritated. Any body have any similar stories they'd like to share?
What gets me is that woodwind playing isnt that common where I live, and this was some old antique store in the back of town, what are the chances?
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2010-11-02 20:45
Fuggedaboudit! Almost every day I check The Infernal Internet Auction Site Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned (TIIASWNSNBM), and every time there are a few, maybe even dozens of "really nice" old clarinets that get sold to someone else. Don't worry, there are plenty more out there waiting for you to open your wallet for................
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2010-11-02 20:50
I missed out on buying a PAIR of Buffet Elite clarinets for almost less than the cost of one student clarinet about 6 months ago... I didn't actually have £400 to lay down for them at the time.
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Author: William
Date: 2010-11-02 23:02
I passed up the opportunity to buy my old clarinet teachers tenor saxophone for $500. It was an old Selmer BA in mint condition and they now sell on the famous auction site for upwards of $3000. I also remember an 8th grade student of mine coming back from a weekend in northern Wisconsin where he bought this saxophone at a country garage sale for $200. He wanted me to "check it out". Jackpot!!! It was a vintage, mint condition Selmer Mark VI tenor that played better than my own MK VI. He went on to play it in highschool marching band..............and most of you know what they are "worth".
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2010-11-03 17:06
A number of years ago, a Leblanc D clarinet came up on eBay. I had absolutely no need for a D at the time (and never have since). Still, mostly out of curiosity, I followed the auction. As the end approached, the clarinet had attracted almost no interest and the high bid was somewhere in the $300 - $500 range. I decided I couldn't let someone steal a D at that price so, with less than 10 seconds left in the auction, I sniped in a bid of $600. I figured that, even though I wasn't really all that interested in the clarinet, if I could get the it at that price, it would be a good deal. Immediately, I saw the "you have been outbid" notice that signified the previous high bidder's maximum bid was higher than the one I had just submitted. That bidder got the instrument for $608. Because the minimum incremental bid at that level was $10, I know the other bidder's maximum bid was $608. If I had bid $610, I almost certainly would have won the instrument because there is no way the other bidder would have had time to place another bid and probably not even enough time for a bid from an automated bidding program. For a long time, I couldn't decide whether I was disappointed or relieved that I hadn't bid just a few dollars more. Then, a few years later, a similar Leblanc D came up and sold for around $1,200.
Another time, when I was looking for a cheap oboe to play around with, I came on an old plastic Linton that the seller had mistakenly identified as a clarinet. The item didn't come up in a search for oboes and, unless one actually viewed the pictures in the auction listing, there was no way to know that the instrument wasn't a clarinet. As I recall, there were no bids. The auction was set to end at 3:00 in the morning! So I stayed up late that night. Again, with about 10 seconds left, I put in a bid only to learn that, about 10 seconds before I clicked on the button to enter my bid, the seller withdrew the item.
Finally, many years ago, someone started auctioning old Russian clarinet sheet music. By the time I discovered this, one item was already sold. I was able to buy the first one I found, Boris Tchaikovsky's Clarinet Concert[in]o for $15 - $20. From then on, though, a new bidder started going after these items. He would place a bid early in the auction and his maximum bid always beat my last-minute bid. After losing a few items, I began to wonder just how much he was actually bidding so I started gradually upping the ante, $30, $40, $50... I think I was up to around $60 when the last item sold and I never did outbid him. (The good news for me, though, is that most of the pieces I wanted showed up again later and I was able to buy them, mostly for less than $10.) It really does only take two bidders to drive up a price.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2010-11-03 17:23
My worst "one that got away" story is about an 1898 Buffet E-flat soprano clarinet I bought for a low price at the Civitan flea market. Unfortunately, the flea market dealer had already beaten me out for that clarinet at the Georgetown flea market a few weeks earlier. (Georgetown was a much bigger flea market then than now. The athletic department of the Duke Ellington School has now taken over more than half of what used to be a parking lot where the flea market set up.) We'd seen each other, we'd stopped and chatted and, as an unspoken courtesy, we headed up different rows. Oops. I picked the wrong row. I arrived at the booth with the clarinet just in time to see him hand over the money. The clarinet had no case. This clarinet was manufactured back when tenons were wrapped with string instead of being corked. This clarinet was in "garage horn" condition. The strings wrapping these tenons were worn down to just about nothing, making the tenons loose, so (as he showed me the purchase and politely but happily gloated over beating me out) I offered him a plastic bag I carry with me. He said nah, he'd just carry the clarinet straight to his car. It'd be fine.
Uh-huh. We went our separate ways again. A few minutes later, my husband saw the man scrambling around on his hands and knees on the asphalt parking lot, picking up pieces of ... something. And a few weeks later, the same clarinet turned up in that purchaser-dealer's own booth at Civitan. The mouthpiece, formerly in pristine condition, had been glued back together, lumpily. It's unplayable, with many missing chips filled in with an overly-enthusiastic application of gap-filling adhesive. The good news: the clarinet itself hadn't been damaged, the dealer only wanted a little bit more than what he'd paid and the broken mouthpiece, a vintage Penzell-Mueller hard rubber, wasn't the original, which would've been made of wood for a Buffet clarinet of that vintage. The bad news: I haven't found another mouthpiece that will play in tune on this instrument. Of course I don't know that the Penzell-Mueller mouthpiece would've played in tune, either.
But I can't complain too much, because the other half of the "got beaten" story would've been from his point of view, about how buying the clarinet was a meager revenge for my buying the 1926 C. G. Conn bass saxophone a few minutes before he arrived at the somewhat creepy pre-death estate sale.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
Post Edited (2010-11-03 17:30)
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2010-11-03 22:30
I missed out on buying an amazing instrument on that auction site the other day starting at only $70 (in fact it may still be there). It looked to me like badly beaten clarinet, but it was being sold as a flute or clarinet or, maybe a bassoon. I guessed it was not a bassoon since it did not have enough wood to burn as long as a bassoon would.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-11-03 23:57
Three more war stories.
A Bb/A pair of Buffets from 1908 appeared on eBay, looking to be in garbage can condition. However, they were in their original case and, they looked just like my C clarinet, which I got in the same condition. I took the chance and got them for a song. I had them restored, and they're both gorgeous, with a much sweeter sound than my modern R13s.
I've been kicking myself ever since I turned down a Charles Chedeville mouthpiece in rough condition priced at $135. I took it to Kal Opperman, who said it was too damaged to be restored, but even in that condition I'm sure it would have brought $500 on eBay.
Finally, Charlie Ponte had a Peloubet 5-key boxwood clarinet hanging from a nail in his store. I asked him for the chance to buy it if he ever retired. When he was about to close, and offered it to me for $200. I accepted, and he he had his repairman replace the flat felt pads. When I came to get it, he said the repairman had lost one of the flat brass keys and had made a new one. Due to the loss of an original part, he gave it to me for $100, which I paid. A month later, he called me to say he had found the original key. I offered to pay another $100, but he refused.
Ken Shaw
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Author: GLHopkins
Date: 2010-11-04 02:30
Twice I've gotten crazy good deals in pawnshops on clarinets. I walked into the shop across the street from where I worked. There was a R-13 for $50. I bought it. One week later I went back. They had another R-13 for $50, and I bought it as well. I've gotten other great deals in pawnshops, but those were my favorites.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2010-11-04 09:46
I got outbid in the last seconds on a full Gillet conservatoire all plastic Linton cor anglais (most likely a Malerne stencil) a couple of years ago which was a shame as I wanted an all-weather cor to go with my plastic oboe. Maybe if I'd gone $10 over my maximum... coulda, woulda, shoulda.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2010-11-04 13:07
Chris -
I just gotta say, I've never seen or heard of a cor in a marching band. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
Ken Shaw
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2010-11-04 13:32
Neither have I!
(and chances are they wouldn't be heard if they were ever in a marching band)
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Leo Sesemann
Date: 2010-11-04 14:46
I missed a pair of RC´s, A and B, nearly new, sold by a girl for 800€ (both together). She got them from her parents, stopped playing, and thought, they loose value like cars...every year 20%... I made everything clear, but an instrument-dealer picked them up in the same evening...
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Author: Klarnetisto
Date: 2010-11-12 04:07
"Another time, when I was looking for a cheap oboe to play around with, I came on an old plastic Linton that the seller had mistakenly identified as a clarinet. The item didn't come up in a search for oboes and, unless one actually viewed the pictures in the auction listing, there was no way to know that the instrument wasn't a clarinet. As I recall, there were no bids. The auction was set to end at 3:00 in the morning! So I stayed up late that night. Again, with about 10 seconds left, I put in a bid only to learn that, about 10 seconds before I clicked on the button to enter my bid, the seller withdrew the item. "
JNK, that's outrageous! My condolences!
Klarnetisto
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Author: Franklin Liao
Date: 2010-11-12 08:55
I missed out on one of Ben's RS Symphonie. It was by some strange twist of fate that another would emerge soon after and I didn't give myself the time to hesitate and seized upon it...
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