Godfroy

This clarinet seems to be named GODFROY, but the second and third letters are indistinct and the stamps on the left hand joint and bell are slightly different for those two letters. Under the name, at the bottom of the oval is AINE. Below the oval, PARIS. The bell shows that this was commissioned by the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MUSIC CO. LOS ANGELES. On the bell is also a stamp that says France, and the lettering is the same as on some old no-name Albert system clarinets I have seen.

I am thinking that this is a Thibouville product. It has Couesnon traits of no adjustment screw for the throat tone Ab and a single post for the pin-in-hole left pinkie keys. But the key work is thicker and the intonation is better than most Couesnon.

In the pictures, you will notice that I reconditioned this clarinet using my Keep It Simple method. There are 5 seldom-used keys that are just taped over. Part of the reason I did this is because the horn has a broken bridge key anyway, and because I had no idea how well it would play. Turns out that it plays great.

I have a note on the vintage page of the existence of a G. Jeuffroy. It is tempting that these be related. There is no way there would be two F’s on this one, however.

Serial #not found. There is a stamp for B and LP. Which means that this would have been made fairly early in the 20th century, say 1915-1925.

Barrel: not original. This came with an interesting short Lafayette barrel. I am testing this with a 63.9 barrel that is kind of interesting. This is marked Paul Durand, Paris, Corvette. There is a stamp in the shape of the Arc du Triomphe, and the barrel looks like it could have been made in 1950. The top LH joint tenon is long and the female end of the barrel is not long enough by 1.1mm. But that tenon is not as wide as most tenons today, so my other barrels won’t fit unless I put a much thicker cork on the tenon.

Bore LH joint top: 14.9mm

Bore LH joint at bottom: 14.5mm Can they have been trying to make a poly-cylindrical bore this early?!

Intonation results taken when playing loud and not lipping. See how to interpret these results on the Model Comparison Page.

For this test, I pulled x at the barrel and 1.5 at the center tenon.