Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2001-11-28 15:24
Well, Archtop1, first of all I am not familiar with this particular marque. However, from its appearance (including its obvious Albert system design), it's likely to be somewhere around eighty years old, plus or minus about twenty. The name sounds Italian, of course, and there were a number of Italian clarinet builders during the period "between wars." [I know nothing about them before 1920 or so.] A few of them were good, some were rather terrible. Without specific information on the maker, no one could guess. Otherwise, your only indication of its possible quality is that it has been around a long time and no one ever decided to make a lamp or stoke a fire with it.
Without further inspection for a mark (or playing it after repair), one might presume this to be a high pitch, or "HP" clarinet. Many early twentieth-century instruments built in Europe were marked as to pitch, high or low, and the two varieties are not mutually compatible. Some builders, especially the more obscure ones, didn't bother marking their instruments, as all their buyers knew what they were getting anyway. If it is HP, it will not play in tune with modern instruments, thereby lowering its value considerably to most potential buyers. If it is 23" long *without* the mouthpiece, that is not at all uncommon for a standard B-flat clarinet. If that measurement is *with* the mouthpiece, it's pitched in a different key, which may enhance its value to a few people but reduce it to many more. Dimitrios, your only current bidder, is an Albert player and equal-opportunity bidder, going after just about any clarinet that is an Albert system instrument and looks as if it can be made to play. I wouldn't expect any intense bidding war on this one, unless someone unearths concrete information that this clarinet is: 1) a low pitch (LP) instrument, 2) a product of a wonderful manufacturer that almost no one remembers, and/or 3) the specific instrument that was played by Sidney Bechet in elementary school, or something like that.
Good luck,
John
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