 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: R. Meyer
Date: 1999-07-16 19:13
I used to play the clarinet in HS (let's not get into how long ago that was!) and I was thinking about picking it back up. A friend of mine came across an old H. Selmer - Paris with the number "E4177" on it. I tried
looking it up on the "sneezy.org" site but came up with nada.
Can anyone help me out on this? Is this even a Bb model?
Thanks, Ron M.
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Author: Dee
Date: 1999-07-17 01:39
Can't help you on the age but if fully assembled with the mouhtpiece but without the mouthpiece cap, a Bb clarinet is just over 26" long.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 1999-07-17 16:13
Hi Ron - Having an old Selmer "Full Boehm" cl [20 keys and 7 rings] which has no serial no., I believe it to be of 1910-'20 vintage. Looking at Sel S N's on my list which is the same as under "Equipment - How Old Is My?" on Sneezy, there is no listed "grouping" with an E designation. Your ser no of 4177 would put it in 1929 tho. As Dee suggested, is your horn small, possibly an Eb? Give us a length, perhaps we can help further.
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Author: R. Meyer
Date: 1999-07-17 20:13
It looks that it is a Bb (as Dee suggested) as the length w/ mpc and no cap is about 26 1/4". On the bell (which is wood) is engraved wings and under that "H. Selmer Paris". The main body does not seem to be made of wood.
Hope this info can narrow it down. I do appreciate your help with this.
Thanks, Ron M.
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Author: Lelia
Date: 1999-07-20 20:14
R. Meyer wrote:
-------------------------------
It looks that it is a Bb (as Dee suggested) as the length w/ mpc and no cap is about 26 1/4". On the bell (which is wood) is engraved wings and under that "H. Selmer Paris". The main body does not seem to be made of wood.
Hope this info can narrow it down. I do appreciate your help with this.
Thanks, Ron M.
Uh-oh. There have been some "mixed media" clarinets. Some of the later Buescher Aristocrats made by Selmer after it acquired the Buescher company were wood bodies with plastic bells and barrels. A few other companies made student models this way, too. But AFAIK, neither Selmer nor anyone else made plastic bodies with wooden barrels and/or bells. I have some old Selmer catalogues and other literature (early 1930s, 1950s, early 1960s and very recent to current) with no such instrument listed. I could be wrong about this and don't want to say "never" because I really don't know, but I'd sure be suspicious that this clarinet is a "marriage" of two different models. It would be important to use the upper and lower section of the same type of clarinet to make sure the bridge fit correctly, but it's pretty easy to find bells and barrels that will swap. The bad thing about marriages is that different manufacturers make the bore slightly different diameters, and put the break between sections in slightly different places so that keys can end up too far up or down in relationship to the total length of the clarinet, which could throw the intonation seriously out of whack. Do serial numbers on the sections, bell and barrel all match? If a section of a Selmer wooden clarinet cracked badly, someone might have taken off the bell and barrel with the distinctive logos and married them with a plastic body. If the barrel and bell are the appropriate length and diameter, the clarinet may play well, but it might be impossible to sell.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 1999-07-20 22:10
The only maker I recall who used a "winged" logo was Conn in early days. Sounds like you have a melange [FR for mixture]. Luck!!
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