 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Moonbreeze
Date: 2012-02-06 02:42
Hello everyone!
I came across this BBoard while trying to research what kind of clarinet my husband bought me. I use to play in middle and high school and have decided to re-learn at the age of 44, just for the fun of it. This clarinet is not like the one I am use to; I had a Bundy in school. This one is missing keys and some are in different locations to what I am use to.
On the bell is says:
Trademark
Boosey
BESSONS & CO
LONDON.W.C.2
H.75983
All I can find on Google related to that information is regarding fake trumpets, nothing about clarinets.
Here are pictures of it: http://s1057.photobucket.com/albums/t391/Moon_Breeze/
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
Paula
Post Edited (2012-02-06 02:43)
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Author: SteveG_CT
Date: 2012-02-06 02:53
Looks like an old Muller/Simple system clarinet made from hard rubber. It was probably made around 100 years ago. Realistically this one is only going to be of interest to collectors as it uses a very outdated key system that few if any people use today.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2012-02-06 19:28
It is definitely a simple system model and of the most basic form as it doesn't even have the patent C# mechanism on the lower joint and this was pretty much standard from the early 1900s.
I can't reconcile the serial number with any woodwind charts I have.
A Besson brass instrument with a similar number would date from about 1905.
Besson were almost exclusively a brass manufacturer and the few woodwind with that name I have seen were almost certainly made for them by other makers.
The name Boosey on it certainly dates it pre 1930 but it is probably much earlier than that.
It is also more than 90% likely to be a high pitch model.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2012-02-06 20:31
That's a very recent copy of a Boosey&Co made in India or Pakistan - it's not the real thing (note the red leather pads and wonky keywork). There's loads of them on eBay and they aren't worth anything.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: SteveG_CT
Date: 2012-02-06 20:59
Chris P wrote:
> That's a very recent copy of a Boosey&Co made in India or
> Pakistan - it's not the real thing (note the red leather pads
> and wonky keywork).
I was going to comment that the keys and body were surprisingly shiny for an instrument as old as it's design would suggest.
Seems like kind of a stange choice of instruments to copy. You would think that copies of Albert, Oehler, or Boehm instruments would be much easier to sell.
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2012-02-06 21:26
Chris is right, I just realised it is named "Bessons" not Besson!!
In pre WW II times there were many British regiments stationed in India each with it's own band so one suspects many old military instruments got left there and some "enterprising" local manufacturer picked up one and decided to copy it, oblivious of the fact that the clarinet world had moved on a long way.
I recall seeling one such many years ago and (after significant efforts to actaully get it to produce any sound) it was actually high pitch!!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2012-02-06 21:33
They're copying instruments that were used by British and local Army bands out there while India was part of the British Empire - maybe they even set up factories and workshops out there to maintain or make new instruments for the bands instead of importing them, so maybe a lot of the tooling for these ones and the old factories are still in use.
More recently, the Besson International range of brass instruments were (and maybe still are) built in India - these are modern design but student/intermediate level brass instruments.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Moonbreeze
Date: 2012-02-07 04:43
Thank you Steve, Norman & Chris. No wonder I couldn't find any info on it. I may just take it and club DH over the head with it. LOL! I'll go shopping for my own clarinet from now on. :-)
Cheers!
Paula
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2012-02-07 12:13
Red pads are an unmistakable red flag for bottom-of-the-barrel quality. The information I had several years ago, from a friendly and honest flea market dealer who ordered these instruments and her other cheap, new merch from a mail-order catalogue, was that the parts for these clarinets with red plastic pads that came on the market in the 1990s were made in China. The instruments were being assembled in India and Russia, then exported with country-of-origin labels from India and Russia. I surmise that the deceptive country-of-origin labelling was done in order to disguise that these clarinets were Chinese, because by the mid-1990s, Chinese clarinets labelled as such had earned such a bad reputation that beginning band teachers were warning parents not to buy them.
(The dealer who gave me this information is a Russian immigrant. The then-current catalogue she showed me was in English, printed in India. However, the colophon information in the front of the catalogue confirmed that its publisher's headquarters was in Beijing. The colophon box included a section in Mandarin that was longer than the section in English. Most of the merch in the catalogue was costume jewelry, toys and kitchenware.)
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: Chris P
Date: 2012-02-07 14:50
Paula,
If you want a good quality plastic instrument, then either the Buffet B12 or Yamaha YCL-250 will be good if you're coming back to clarinet and want a relatively low maintenance instrument.
But see what is available to you in Tasmania - the Buffet and Yamaha should be fairly commonplace as they're pretty much an industry standard.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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