Raymond, sponsored by Selmer

I was interested in this instrument because I have worked on two F. Barbier clarinets, and both had a relation to Selmer. There are several names that are associated to Selmer and clarinets, Barbier, Raymond, and Bundy. (Many people don't know that there was an intermediate wooden Bundy before the plastic Bundy's that became so popular.)

Since the clarinet says, “Sponsored by,” it was not made by Selmer, but by one of the stencil makers. I'm thinking this is a very late Couesnon because of the unified left pinkie keys and the three posts for the throat tone A and G#. Compare with Barbier Couesnon. There are no batch numbers under the keys.

Judging by the fake crocodile skin case (which looks original), the unified left post, and high quality chrome plated keys, I would say the horn was produced around 1940.

Serial # 5046C

Barrel: 68mm (too long for me to play in tune)

Bore LH joint top: 14.6mm

Bore LH joint at bottom: 14.4mm

Intonation results taken when playing loud and not lipping. See how to interpret these results on the Wooden Clarinets main page.

For this test I used a 65.7mm plastic no-name barrel.