Someone brought a satchel containing 3 Kruspe clarinets to the store I work in.
The owner is a relation of the original owner who played the clarinets in Sousa's band. There are 3 instruments: A, Bb, C . All in need of work, but all are in quite decent shape and would be quite playable with servicing by a competent tech. The key system is very German, but not standard either. There is no serial number chart that I am aware of, but one of the items in the bag was a shipping tube for one of the mouthpieces with a postage stamp on it that was only in use about 100 years ago. The mouthpieces are all ribbed, but there are metal ligs involved as well. One of the coolest things in the bag was a wooden mouthpiece cover in beautiful shape.
They are high quality instruments, but there seems to be nothing much about them on the web - at least in english. I did run across this mention : http://books.google.com/books?id=Hn...#v=onepage&q=c kruspe erfurt clarinet&f=false
Anybody know of the maker or these instruments?
I don't have them in front of me, and neglected to take any pictures, but this google image is quite close, as far as I can remember.
The owner is a relation of the original owner who played the clarinets in Sousa's band. There are 3 instruments: A, Bb, C . All in need of work, but all are in quite decent shape and would be quite playable with servicing by a competent tech. The key system is very German, but not standard either. There is no serial number chart that I am aware of, but one of the items in the bag was a shipping tube for one of the mouthpieces with a postage stamp on it that was only in use about 100 years ago. The mouthpieces are all ribbed, but there are metal ligs involved as well. One of the coolest things in the bag was a wooden mouthpiece cover in beautiful shape.
They are high quality instruments, but there seems to be nothing much about them on the web - at least in english. I did run across this mention : http://books.google.com/books?id=Hn...#v=onepage&q=c kruspe erfurt clarinet&f=false
Anybody know of the maker or these instruments?
I don't have them in front of me, and neglected to take any pictures, but this google image is quite close, as far as I can remember.