Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2014-04-24 21:38
At the Civitan (Arlington, Virginia) flea market on April 5, I saw the sad result of a big no-no. The clarinet was a wooden C. G. Conn, marked LP for "low pitch," a sure sign of pre-WWII vintage. Since I play C. G. Conn saxophones from the golden period of the 1920s, I would have loved to buy that clarinet for under US$50 and try it out, but alas -- ruined, probably not by a clarinet player, but by a flea market dealer.
The wood, not just inside the bore but all over the outside, too, had swollen and cracked in several places. Some of the key-posts had popped loose so that the keys dangled. The surface of the wood looked dull, grayish and checked. The plush case-lining was a stinky, rotten, moldy mess, stained blotchy gray and black. Maybe somebody could use those keys for parts, but the wood -- nope. Perished.
What had happened? I'll bet everybody reading this has already figured it out: somebody'd displayed this clarinet at an outdoor flea market in the rain, then closed up the soaking wet case and stored it in a trailer or an outbuilding where it froze and thawed, probably several times, over the winter.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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The Clarinet BBoard
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