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Another mystery clarinet...

Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2018-04-03 17:09
Attachment: Size comparison.jpg (1665k)
Attachment: Serial number.jpg (1032k)
Attachment: HP.jpg (933k)
Attachment: logo.jpg (1077k)

In my local woodwind shop recently, there was a couple seeking info on a relative’s clarinet.
It was a Buffet high-pitch model, whose serial number looked like 4L735. Buffet appears to have removed their serial number look-up site, but there is a Buffet serial number site at:
https://www.adams-music.com/instrumenten/serienummer/buffet-crampon.asp?lid=1033
There was no serial number that started 4L, only 1L. By the photo attached, the first number could very well be a 1 and not a 4.
A clarinet with the serial number 1L735 would have been made in 1918.

The strange thing is that this instrument plays in tune with itself in the key of B natural!
As you can see from one of the photos, the clarinet is shorter than my Bb (A Yahama CSGII, pictured next to it), but noticeably longer than a C clarinet. I assumed that a HP Bb clarinet would be a bit shorter than a Bb clarinet, but I understood that HP did not raise the pitch a semitone. (Of course, the amount to which a HP instrument’s pitch is raised might not have been standardized.)
Another curious thing was that the barrel (a Boosey and Hawkes barrel that did not match the bore of the instrument) seemed too long for a short instrument, yet the throat tones were quite high compared to the other ranges.
The bell did not look like it matched the instrument and was not stamped.
The HP stamp looks less worn than the Buffet logo above it. Could the HP stamp have been put on later than the Buffet logo?
Is it luck that this instrument plays a full semitone higher than a Bb clarinet, or is that common in HP Bb clarinets?

Does anyone know anything about a possible 1918 HP Buffet clarinet that currently plays in tune a semitone above a Bb clarinet, making it effectively a clarinet in B natural?

Thanks in advance,
Simon

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