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RE: Pan American CLarinet

Author: Dee
Date: 2001-02-22 16:56

Pan American was a wholly owned subsidiary of Conn. Conn established the Pan American division to produce student grade instruments. For many years, only the Pan American name was placed on the instrument. In later years, Conn included the Conn name on the instruments leading many people to mistakenly believe that Conn had purchased them instead of owning them all along. The history of the Conn company can be read at the internet site for the Shrine to Music Museum (sorry don't have the URL handy).

The normal Pan American clarinet is worth zip. However there is one version that has some value among collectors. At one point in time, they experimented with using laminated wood billets to make the clarinets. When the clarinet is turned from the billet, you get a lovely and prominent "grain" effect. It's not really a grain but just the pattern that you get when you cut across the laminations. All the ones that I have seen were stained a beautiful reddish brown color. Unfortunately there were flaws in the lamination process and many of these split along the laminations. This resulted in such significant impact on the company's reputation that this process was discontinued. They come up on the eBay auction from time to time and, if in good condition, will generally go for $300 or a little better.

Other versions of the Pan American aren't worth more than about $50. Although they had a nice, big, full sound, their intonation accuracy was atrocious (I speak from personal experience here). The construction was definitely low cost. Basically where other clarinets use the long rod screws down the centers of the rods, they used short end screws in most instances. In addition, the key work was not well balanced and had a "clunky" response.

Over the decades, the Pan American was produced in a variety of materials including wood, laminated wood (as discussed above), hard rubber and plastic.

It is likely that you have it over insured rather than under insured.

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