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Re: Buffet Crampon Carl FIsher model identification

Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2021-03-04 10:01

What we tend to think of today as an "R13" is the designation Buffet adopted in 1955, when it committed to Robert Caree's design, including the polycylindrical bore and undercut tone holes. This has led to some confusion because before Buffet adopted the designation, when Carl Fischer was Buffet's distributor in the United States, Fischer had its own model designations for Buffet clarinets and Fischer (though not Buffet) designated the standard Master Bore, 17-key, 6-ring model as an R13 in its catalogs. To distinguish the two designs some people now refer to the older Fischer R13 as a pre-R13 model. (Confused yet? If not, read on.)

At the time Fischer was its distributor, Buffet offered a variety of key configurations ranging from the standard 17-key, 6-ring that most of us play, to a version with 20 keys and 7 rings (a "full-Boehm" system) with a few alternatives in between.

Using the search function on this site, I found a page from an old Buffet catalog that describes the various alternatives.

http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/download.html/1,2226/Buffet%20catalog.jpg

Your clarinet has the articulated G# key and 7 rings so, it is technically an R14 1/2. Note that Fischer considered the articulated G# as an extra key. (Some might say a pre-R13, R14 1/2 but I would never do that. [rotate]