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RE: my old clarinet

Author: Dee
Date: 1999-07-07 20:21

Metal clarinets were made by the ton in the early part of this century for the student and marching band trade. The heydey of these instruments was from roughly 1920 to late in the 1930s. Of course they were made before and after this period (I read that one company made a metal clarinet as late as the 1960s).

Since the majority were aimed at students and marching bands, they were generally built to be rugged and durable but most were student quality instruments. There were some intermediate instruments made and a very, very few pro grade instruments made.

Based on the numbers of these that I see on the auction sites, Holton made a lot of metal clarinets so it is probable that yours is a beginner model (the Collegiate *may* have been an intermediate mode). Depending on the condition, they seem to be selling for anywhere from $50 to $75. It is very doubtful that it would have been made of silver. There is a possibility that it was silver plated but it could just as easily have been nickel plated or even chrome plated.

People do buy them just to have a piece of clarinet history but the value of them is relatively low unless of course you were to have one of the quite rare pro instruments made.

Metal horns in general gained a poor reputation just by the fact that they *were* geared towards students (listen to people put down common student plastic horns today, same deal). So they had the usual student compromises built in. On top of that, they did have some of their own unique problems. The corners where the tubes join the body caused poor flow characteristics sometimes leading to possibly poor tone quality. Only the metal tuning barrel could be pulled or pushed since there was usually no center joint. This limited the ability to tune the instrument in difficult situations. Then of course some of the older ones were built to different pitch standards, which in turn caused severe tuning problems if a player had one of these.

They probably are no worse than the student woods from the same era actually but since they could be easily identified, they perhaps received a worse reputation than they really deserved.

They are fun to have. I have an old Italian made one that seriously needs an overhaul. However it is playable so I've tried it out a bit. It really doesn't play that badly. I've checked it against my tuning meter and it is poor but no worse than an old wooden Pan American student clarinet of about the same age that I used to have.

I wouldn't throw it away and I wouldn't turn it into a lamp. It could be fixed up and played or sold to some one who wants one for their little bit of clarinet history.

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