 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: vintschevski
Date: 2022-04-22 08:51
Attachment: Old Buffet serial number.jpg (92k)
By the way, the logo appears in other spots on the clarinet, not just on the bell. The serial number is 5417, which according to one serial number list that I have seen means that the clarinet is from 1931.
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Author: jdbassplayer
Date: 2022-04-22 17:01
Unfortunately it appears to be a fake made by Rampone. Some things that are a giveaway:
1) While Buffet did make hard rubber clarinets in the 30s, the tenons were always metal capped
2) All Buffet clarinets have somewhat decorative socket rings, not these plain style rings.
3) Below the logo there should be the text "Made in France"
I once had a pair of these fake Buffet clarinets, one Eb and one Ab. They were stamped "Systema Buffet Crampon" with a very Buffet looking logo. Fortunately the company has wised up in the last hundred years and is making saxophones under their own brand.
-JDbassplayer
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Author: vintschevski
Date: 2022-04-23 01:22
As the logos on this clarinet are definitely exactly the same as the normal Buffet Crampon logo (and not just "Buffet looking"), could it be the case that it was made by another company for Buffet Crampon, perhaps by Rampone, and so is not exactly a fake in the most pejorative sense? Apparently the company did, for a while at least during the 1930s, get their lower quality instruments made by others.
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Author: jdbassplayer
Date: 2022-04-23 02:01
Attachment: buffet logo comparison.png (479k)
Looking more closely at the logo it doesn't appear exactly the same. I'll try to attach a picture comparing it to my 6078 Buffet, also from 1931. The lettering is off (most notably the "O" in "Crampon) and the BC on the bottom is skew (On every Buffet I have seen it is centered below the A, not between the A and the P. Also the lyre is different. I have a feeling if Buffet was going to authorize instruments to be produced under their name they would at least send them the right stamp for the logo, this looks more like a poor attempt to copy.
>Apparently the company did, for a while at least during the 1930s
Do you have a source for that? I'm not doubting and I may be wrong but from what I understand Buffet didn't start outsourcing their lower model clarinets to other companies until the 50s. And even then they didn't use the original Buffet logo. Saxophones may be a different story but those were also marked Evette and Schaeffer.
-JDbassplayer
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Author: vintschevski
Date: 2022-04-23 04:06
Regarding the source for the reference to the 1930s, I took that from the Wikipedia article on Buffet Crampon, in the History section. Wikipedia articles are not necessarily reliable and anyway, in this case I probably misinterpreted the sentence. The article stated that lower grade instruments were (around the 1920s) made as Evette or Evette and Schaeffer, and then "during the 1930s BC began outsourcing Evette & Schaeffer instruments to other manufacturers". When I first read that, I took it to refer to lower grade instruments in general (the ones that had previously been labelled Evette and Schaeffer), but now on re-reading it, it seems clear that these instruments continued to be labelled Evette and Schaeffer, and would not have had the BC logo at all. My apologies!
I guess we don't really know everything that such companies did re outsourcing back then, but it does seem that Buffet and Crampon would have wanted their logo only on high quality instruments.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2022-04-23 09:28
>> Unfortunately it appears to be a fake made by Rampone. <<
If it's fake, why do you think it's made by Rampone, and if it is, which Rampone do you mean?
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Author: jdbassplayer
Date: 2022-04-23 18:56
Admittedly this particular instrument could be from any maker as it appears to be a more general fake. The reason I said Rampone is because I owned a “Sistema Buffet Crampon” piccolo clarinet that was clearly a Rampone & Cazzani stencil and I was able to find pictures of an identical Rampone Ab clarinet but with the R&C marking. I’m fairly confident it was a Rampone as there were only a handful of makers making Ab clarinets in Italy, notably one of the Stowassers and Orsi but neither of those matched my instrument. Looking online the various other “Sistema Buffet Crampon” clarinets I see also appear to be Rampone instruments based on various features like the trill key guide and shape of various keys.
-JDbassplayer
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2022-04-27 23:53
Attachment: logos.jpg (1249k)
I own a "Buffet" of similar vintage (serial 52**, from 1930). It is extended simple system, with the Barrett action on the top joint. But like the one discussed here, it has smooth tenon rings, serial number on all parts, including bell and barrel, and no "made in France".
This instrument is rosewood, rather than ebonite. However, to pick up the comment by jdbassplayer:
> While Buffet did make hard rubber clarinets in the 30s, the tenons were always metal capped
I have an ebonite Buffet from 1935 with standard design features, where the tenons are not metal capped. So that aspect alone doesn't prove that vintschevski's instrument isn't by Buffet.
I attach the logo, compared with a 1925 instrument I own. There are slight differences, but I wonder if things were so standard then. Clearly the lyre and BC below were stamped separately - and each craftsman may have had their own piece for these. Other elements of the logo may have been hand engraved. Overall, they're very similar; the Chinese can't produce such a close copy in their eBay fakes, even with modern technology.
So I don't think these instruments are fakes as such. The only question is whether Buffet made them in Paris, or contracted them out. The lack of "made in France" is probably the strongest argument for this. But the smooth tenon rings are a puzzle: Buffet could easily have asked for grooved ones from any contractor. So presumably they wanted them smooth for some reason. My simple system is high pitch, so conceivably they wanted to make HP simple system instruments distinct from the rest of their range?
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2022-04-28 00:08
Further on this, I looked at the catalogue of the Shackleton collection (see http://www.euchmi.ed.ac.uk/ucis.html). I can see three Buffets close in time to 1930. Two of them are simple+Barrett instruments (catalogue nos 5362 and 5509), and they too have smooth tenon rings. There is also a pair of Boehm instruments (catalogue no. 4781), which have standard grooved tenon rings. But these instruments are not marked "made in France" (or at least, the catalogue doesn't mention this, and they are normally scrupulous about copying all markings - and the logos don't seem to be worn). So now I'm doubting whether there is any strong evidence against the simple idea that instruments with the Buffet logo were made in Paris by Buffet - just with design variations whose rationale is lost in the mists of time.
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Author: vintschevski
Date: 2022-04-29 14:50
John Peacock, thank you very much for all your comments and references. I must see whether my local university library has a copy of the Shackleton Collection catalogue.
The seller of the clarinet has looked in vain for Made In France on the instrument. She has, however, mentioned that the BC logo appears on the mouthpiece, though very faintly, and although I realise that it isn't very logical on my part, I feel that somehow this reinforces an acceptance of the clarinet as being a "Buffet Crampon", whether made in France or elsewhere. Not that it matters to me personally; it would be just as, or even more, interesting if it were indeed a "fake".
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2022-04-29 18:54
Actually, images of many of the Shackleton instruments can be found online (though mixed with other non-Shackleton instruments owned by the University of Edinburgh). The key search page is here:
https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/advanced/form
Insert "Buffet" into the "Maker" box and you find 91 items (including brass mouthpieces, but mostly clarinets). There are good zoomable images, which let you inspect details of logos etc. For example:
https://collections.ed.ac.uk/mimed/record/16483 Is a 1930 Barrett instrument very similar to mine. Again: smooth rings and no "Made in France".
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Author: vintschevski
Date: 2022-04-30 04:12
Thanks again! The detail in those records is amazing, what a super resource.
I wonder, though, how we know for sure that a BC clarinet that doesn't have Made in France on it was actually made in France. How, indeed, do we know for sure that a BC clarinet that does have Made in France was actually made in France? Not that I'm raising doubts, I mean literally that I'm interested in how we know such things for sure.
Which leads to me ask:why was Made in France stamped on clarinets? I had some vague ideas about this floating around in the back of my mind based on some reading at some point which I can't recall well enough now. Was it a legal requirement arising from some international trade agreement? Or was it just an advertising thing based on the perceived superiority of French-made clarinets and recognising the huge English-speaking market?
And while we're at it, I'll toss in another question: when hard rubber clarinets were first being produced, was it the assumption that such clarinets would be of lesser quality than wood clarinets, or was it the intention (originally, at least) that the hard rubber clarinets would be just as good as the wood ones?
Just tossing these questions up for consideration, I'm ignorant of the actual facts of the history of these things.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2022-04-30 06:26
>> The reason I said Rampone... <<
The other Rampone possibly only made saxophones, but Rampone only (as opposed to Rampone and Cazzani) generally means the other Rampone, or R&C from before they became R&C, which is around 1900.
>> ...it appears to be a more general fake. <<
Why a fake and not a stencil? R&C used make stencils and strangely enough even instruments with no name at all (I have one of the latter here right now).
>> But the smooth tenon rings are a puzzle: Buffet could easily have asked for grooved ones from any contractor. So presumably they wanted them smooth for some reason. My simple system is high pitch, so conceivably they wanted to make HP simple system instruments distinct from the rest of their range? <<
They could ask for anything, but if whoever made them was using smooth rings, it could be as simple as going with a stock spec to save costs.
Post Edited (2022-05-07 09:00)
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