BACH MERCEDES TRUMPETS AND CORNETS “ANOTHER STRAD IN DISGUISE” Roy Hempley With Bill Siegfried Dedication This article is dedicated to Gilbert (Gil) Mitchell. During his career, Gil was many things: soloist, conductor, educator and soldier. Bill Siegfried (above) was among his many students.

NOTE: If you have a shop card copy for your instrument and/or know it's specific date of manufacture, please E-mail me with the information so I can update this list. Vincent Bach Tormpeten. Bach Trumpet Serial Numbers: Bach Trumpet Serial Numbers From 1925 to 1999. BACH Serial Numbers For Trumpets & Cornets: SERIAL NUMBER.

Gil was also a good friend of Vincent Bach who entrusted him with quite a few of his important treasures. Later, he freely provided the author with advice and artifacts to help research Bach’s instruments. For this article, perhaps Gil’s most valuable contribution was to draw attention to his own Bach trumpet, a Mercedes that Bach made late in his career. This prompted a question about why anybody would think so highly of a Bach Mercedes trumpet. For his help and inspiration, this article is dedicated to Gil—Mercedes trumpeter. Preface The evolution of any of Bach’s instrument models is complicated. In 1961 when Bach sold his company, he turned over significant archival material to the buyer, the Selmer Company.

This material provided specifications and insights into production decisions made throughout his career. In addition, Bach provided summaries of his products. Taken together, the information still did not convey everything Selmer needed to know. The reason for this is easy to understand. The Bach Corporation mainly lived in Bach’s mind, not on paper. Looking at his archives now without being able to tap into his thoughts, it is impossible to describe all aspects of his production choices exactly right. Close is possible; exact is not.

The reason for bringing this up is that discussing Mercedes instruments is almost the most complicated aspect of Bach production, second only to Stradivarius production. The definition of a Mercedes instrument varied widely over time. If a person now owns one of these instruments, two questions arise.

First, is it a standard Mercedes? Second, could it satisfy a current playing need?

Obviously, answering the second question depends on the trumpet player, but answering the first question has to be based on what Bach considered the standard to be when the instrument was made. That can be contrasted with what happened with Stradivarius instruments.

If a trumpet player today wants to buy a Stradivarius trumpet, he or she may choose from a variety of bore sizes, bells, mouthpipes and other aspects of the Stradivarius line of instruments. Stradivariuses may be “created” online. Many of the combinations may be tried at a Bach dealer. For most of his career, however, Bach made most of those choices himself for all of his models. The following illustrates choices Bach may have made available. Picking a month at random, here are the shipments to buying entities in June 1960.

In that month, Bach shipped 109 instruments to 65 different entities, meaning dealers and other recipients such as the United States Marine Corps. By far, the biggest recipient that month was Pennino Music Company in Los Angeles, California. Pennino got eight instruments broken down as follows. There were three B b Stradivarius trumpets (0.459 inch bore, #43 bell, #25 mouthpipe), two B b Stradivarius trumpets (0.459 inch bore, #37 bell, #25 mouthpipe), one D Stradivarius trumpet (0.448 inch bore, #236 bell, #7D mouthpipe), one B b Mercedes trumpet (0.456 inch bore, #38K bell, #7 mouthpipe) and one B b Mercedes cornet (0.456 inch bore, #38K bell, #106 mouthpipe). This was not a typical shipment since the average number of instruments shipped to an entity was less than two instruments. On the other hand, players shopping at Pennino could select from the broadest array of Bach instruments shipped that month. General observations about Bach shipments seemed more-or-less to follow this kind of pattern.

Bach’s shipments imply that if a trumpet player wanted to buy a Stradivarius B b trumpet from a dealer in 1960, the choice might be rather limited. The choice would be between a medium-large bore (0.459 inches) trumpet with a #25 mouthpipe and either a #37 or #43 bell. The range of choices could not be expanded easily unless the person went to the Bach factory. There a person could choose from available stock or even tell Bach how he wanted a horn to play. Bach might then draw on available instruments waiting to be shipped or assemble an instrument that he thought would meet the person’s objectives. There would be little discussion about things that modern players routinely think about today.

Bach was rather insistent that he could choose trumpet components (mainly bore size, bell and mouthpipe) to meet playing objectives much better than players could. Of course there were some exceptions to these generalizations, but for the most part, Bach simply made trumpets that he thought achieved certain objectives and sold them to dealers. He produced “standards”, but those would remain standard for only a relatively short time. Then he would change the standard, sometimes rather dramatically, as he saw fit. When his production history is examined, it is often difficult to tell exactly when something changed, much less what or why. Picking a Mercedes at a music store was not so cut and dried as to what was being bought, however, because so many of them were not standard even as they left the Bach factory.

Often research has to be done to tell whether or not the Mercedes might be in a standard configuration for the production period. Typically that research has to be done using Bach’s archival data and quite often a set of measuring tools. At this point, a portion of a document from Bach’s archives will be introduced to illustrate some of the complexities of researching his Mercedes trumpets. Figure 1: Bell Mandril 24 Boilerplate (Click the Image to View Full Size in a New Window) The above figure is the boiler plate from a technical drawing of Bach bell #24. The Selmer Company received the drawing from Bach, and it remains in his archives at the Bach plant. The boilerplate indicates that Bach combined elements of bells #12 and #14 and redesigned them into bell #24.

It is the only bell that Bach indicates was specifically designated for his Mercedes trumpets. Codified on February 5, 1933, it was only natural to look for trumpets made with this bell and investigate them for this article.

Research of all of Bach’s records, however, shows that this particular bell was never used on any Mercedes, trumpet or cornet. Moreover, it was never used on any other Bach model either. Somewhere in the Bach plant the original of this bell still may be lurking unused. The above boilerplate introduces other factors that lead to unanswered questions that inevitably arise in researching Bach instruments. Documentation is certainly thought to be helpful, but not always.

It will be demonstrated later that Bach’s #14 bell was codified in 1925. The #12 bell, however, was not codified until 1941.

This boilerplate represents a bell that apparently was drawn up almost exactly halfway between the codification dates of its progenitors, i.e., 1933. The only explanation for this interesting observation would have to have been provided by Bach himself. For research, some lapses in Bach’s archival data can be filled by examining instruments. Even so, uncertainties emerge making speculation necessary, and inevitably mistakes will crop up. Despite these caveats, the following material discusses the evolution of Bach’s Mercedes instruments, sometimes in spite of what Bach himself said. The resulting exposition should be fairly accurate. Introduction to Mercedes Trumpets (and Cornets) The quotation in the title of this article, “Another Strad In Disguise”, was written by Vincent Bach.

On January 13, 1968, Bach wrote a letter to his friend Gilbert Mitchell (USA Lt Col, Retired). At the time, Mitchell was still a member of the United States Army Band in Washington, D. Mitchell had asked Bach about a Mt Vernon Mercedes trumpet he owned. In Bach’s reply, he described aspects of Mercedes trumpets in general.

He said that they were essentially the same as Stradivarius trumpets, but they were made in only one bore size (0.456 inches) and without the nickel trim used on Stradivarius trumpets. Bach’s intent was to convey to Mitchell that his Mercedes trumpet was indeed a high quality instrument with playing characteristics like those of Stradivarius trumpets but priced more modestly. Bach’s letter was written several years after he sold his company and with a specific context in mind.

The story of Mercedes instruments actually is more complicated than Bach described. The intent of this article is to trace Mercedes instruments from their introduction up to the specific Mercedes Bach addressed in his letter to Mitchell. It is not clear that Bach originally intended to name any of his instruments Mercedes. The name was not included in his original trademark applications in the fall of 1925, his first full year of production.

When he finally applied for his Mercedes trademark in 1927, it might have seemed that choosing it could complicate trademark registration and recognition. After all, there were three United States trademarks already registered for the Mercedes automobile before Bach applied for his trademark.

Bach appears to have understood the trademark process well enough to avoid any trademark problems by adopting a stylized Mercedes signature. The two Mercedes trademarks (car and instruments) look nothing alike. Moreover, using the same name is allowed under trademark law for dissimilar products. On the surface of it, Mercedes seems an odd name for Bach to choose for one of his instrument lines. Among his five most prominent model names; Stradivarius, Apollo, Mercury, Minerva and Mercedes; three were names of Greek or Roman deities. Mercedes and Stradivarius were not.

Poise Percussion Sampler Crack. Discounting Minerva, a short-lived line of instruments that did not appear until 1959, Apollo and Mercedes seem to have competed to be the intermediate instrument line between Stradivarius and Mercury. Bach’s earliest catalogs reveal something about the intended outcome.

In them, Bach described three instrument models: Stradivarius, Apollo and Mercury. Each one is said to have a trademark. That may have been Bach’s intent, but only two applications are on file at the U.S. Trademark Office, and Apollo is not one of them. The first Apollo instruments were a little odd compared to Stradivarius instruments.

Torrent Client Portable Mac Mini. Bach stopped routine manufacturing of them very early. As time went on, he occasionally would slip a few Apollos into production.

In total, Apollo production may have amounted to about 100 instruments. A very small number have been examined, including two of the earliest ones made.

Neither of them approached Stradivarius or even Mercedes quality. Early Mercedes were different.

As Bach said to Mitchell, Mercedes were made to high standards somewhat akin to that of Stradivarius instruments. The most recognizable difference eventually materialized as the absence of nickel silver on most Mercedes. In some instances, overproduced or blemished Stradivarius parts were used on them. As a result, not all Mercedes were created equal.

The name Stradivarius of course was adopted from the famous violin, but why did Bach choose Mercedes as a name for some of his instruments? The answer to this remains elusive. It is only natural to think the choice might have had something to do with the quality of the German automobile, but this is speculation. The two trademarks (automobile and trumpet) are shown below in their relative sizes as they appear in their respective United States trademark applications. Figure 2: Mercedes Trademarks (Click the Image to View Full Size in a New Window) Research sometimes raises more questions than it answers.

For example, the earliest automobile trademarks used square letters, and two of them (the last e’s) had French pronunciation marks over them. The marks, called accent aigu and accent grave, respectively, seem to be out of place because all of the principals of the automobile company (Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft) were German. It happens that the automobile company’s biggest customer and board member had a daughter named Mercedes. Her name used the same marks and was chosen for the automobile, but the automobile company itself did not seem to adopt them. How and why they were used for a United States trademark as it appears above is something of a mystery that really needs no explanation. Bach’s trademark, however, was in script form, so it cannot be confused with the square-lettered version registered for the automobiles, with or without the pronunciation marks. The following are important dates for Bach’s Mercedes trademark on file with the U.S.

Trademark Office. Filing date: March 21, 1927 Registration date: March 27, 1928 First-use-in-commerce date: January 15, 1927 The first-use-in-commerce date identifies approximately when Bach’s first Mercedes trumpet was made.

All of the information we know about this instrument is shown below on its shop card. Figure 3: Mercedes Nr. 573 Shop Card (Click the Image to View Full Size in a New Window) Mercedes trumpet #573 was completed on January 14, 1927, the day before Bach said the Mercedes trademark was first used and two months before the application for the name was filed with the U.S. Trademark Office. It was a large bore trumpet that used Stradivarius components available at the time of manufacture (type A valves, #1 bell and #2 mouthpipe). (Bach assigned letters to valve designs and numbers to bell and mouthpipe mandrils.) Its bell was made of brass routinely used at the time for Stradivarius trumpet bells. This trumpet probably was destroyed (see note: spoiled), so it is unlikely to turn up for examination.

Early in 1928, Bach followed Mercedes #573 with four additional Mercedes trumpets. One of the four was kept on hand in the Bach plant for some time. The others were sent to a theater, quite likely as rentals.

They too were large bore trumpets that used Stradivarius components being used at the time (type B valves, #6 bells and #6 mouthpipes). Bach may have intended to continue using components on Mercedes that were designed for Stradivariuses By the fall of 1929, however, more serious Mercedes production began, and the instruments began to take shape. First, the vast majority of Mercedes instruments were medium bore instruments (0.453 inches) up until 1959 when Bach began making them in a new bore size, 0.456 inches. This latter bore size was and remains odd for Bach instruments. He eventually provided a rather extensive explanation for this choice in his 1961 instrument catalog (see extract at the end of this article). Among a rather long explanation, he indicated that Mercedes were made in the most desirable bore size for the average player (between medium and medium-large bore sizes) and “well suited for all-around work”.

This might be a little confusing considering his reply to Mitchell because Mitchell was not an “average” player. Mitchell clearly thought his Mercedes was an excellent trumpet. It probably was made with a #38 bell and #7 mouthpipe, the standard Mercedes configuration at the time. Bach made 1687 Mercedes instruments between 1927 and 1961.

There were 1267 trumpets and 420 cornets. Yearly production is shown on the following chart.

Figure 4: Mercedes Yearly Production (Click the Image to View Full Size in a New Window) Overall Mercedes production was spotty during the early years. The most important thing that has not been determined is whether Mercedes trumpets made between 1931 and 1934 all were configured like Stradivarius instruments as were the early Mercedes examined for this article. Mercedes production (along with the rest of Bach production) suffered between the early and late 1930s. This period coincides with the Great Depression. During two World War Two years (1943-1944), Mercedes production completely stopped. Bach began reorganizing his business immediately after the war, and a few Mercedes were made then.

Production increased toward the end of the 1940s, and continued relatively stable until he sold his company in 1961. (The year 1961 shows a falloff in production, but the 1961 data represent only three-quarters of a production year. Bach sold his company in the fall of that year.) Determining what Mercedes were like during different production periods unfortunately boiled down to something of a statistical analysis since quite a few of them were one-of-a-kind instruments.

Breaking production down by bore size was a place to start the analysis. Approximately 86 percent were medium bore instruments (0.453 inches).

Another 10 percent were made late during Mt Vernon production in a special bore size (0.456 inches). Other bore sizes account for the remaining 4 percent and are considered non-standard. (All of the “other” bore sized trumpets were made prior to World War Two, and only 15 cornets in odd bore sizes were made after the war.) The 96 percent of the Mercedes made with the two standard bore sizes (0.453 inches and 0.456 inches) were grouped according to when they were produced and the major components used on them. This was a rather labored and somewhat complicated process explained in more detail in the appendix to this article. The results of the exercise are shown in the following table, but to understand the table better, the data in the appendix should be considered.

MERCEDES CONFIGURATION TABLE Bore Sizes: 0.453 and 0.456 Inches. TRUMPETS CORNETS BELL(s) MOUTHPIPE(s) BELL(s) MOUTHPIPES(s) Pre-WW II 1929-1931 #11 & #14 #6 & #14 - - (34%) (61%) (50%) (44%) - - 1940-1942 #31 & #37 #7 #31 & #37 #112 (12%) (86%) (99%) (75%) (10%) (95%) Post-WW II 1946-1953 #37 & #38 #7 #37 & #38 #112 & #106 (30%) (64%) (97%) (13%) (76%) (15%) (73%) 1954-1961 #38 #7 #38 #106 (96%) (98%) (99%) (100%) Criterion for including a component: 10% or greater The numbers assigned to the components do not imply an order to their introduction It is useful to consider an example to help read the entire chart. During the 1940 through 1942 production period, 12 percent of Mercedes trumpet bells were #31 bells and 86 percent were #37 bells. The other two percent of the bells were some other kind.

The mouthpipes were almost entirely #7 mouthpipes with only one percent some other kind of mouthpipe.