In Part VII, I said that I would try to wrap things up with my interpretation of what actually happened in the Gregory Mouthpiece Saga. We came across a lot of information that appeared much more reliable than the story related in the original Gregory Mouthpiece Saga and most of which directly contradicted the story. What was just as frustrating was that Paul and I often disagreed as to how to interpret the newly revealed facts. Should we tweak the original Saga to fit the new facts or should we abandon that part of the Saga and go a different direction?
And we even had to decide what constitutes a fact. We came across mentions of Gregory, Gale, Rico, etc., in old trade publications. When trying to create a time line for the introduction of a mouthpiece, if we found it mentioned in a 1952 publication, it would have been introduced before then, but what could we extrapolate from that information? For instance, what was the lead time for the publication? Six months? A year? How accurate could we be on a release date based on an advertisement?
And for how long was a mouthpiece available? If the piece was fabricated in 1954 (while Mr. Gregory was alive and maybe still working at Rico Products), could that stock still be selling in 1960? Or 1965? And if it is mentioned in a 1975 trade publication, does that really mean that it was still available then? I need to find my 1965 Eric Brand catalog (the namesake of Brand numbers). I remember seeing that he still had NOS mouthpieces that hadn't been produced for more than a decade. As many of us know, mouthpieces don't go bad.
While conducting our research, I had an experience that shook my confidence in relying on some publications. I have also been researching the disappearance of Riffault et Fils, a major French mouthpiece manufacturer. I contacted the last U.S. distributor for Riffault listed in a major trade publication. The distributor was listed as being located in Texas, but the phone was disconnected. When I found another contact number and called them, I found that they had moved out of Texas years prior to the trade journal publication date. When I asked about their representing the products of Riffault et Fils, they had to ask a long-term employee (over 20 years). He had never heard of them. They told me that they would contact the trade publication and correct the outdated information still being published after all these years. The information just keeps getting published every year if no one bothers to change it. (I did manage to find Riffault and visit the old factory in France.)
So much for my using trade publications to establish accurate time lines. It made for some frustration when trying to establish production dates for Rico mouthpieces like the "Master by Gregory." A trade publication might simply automatically reuse the same text year after year. Finding text that indicates the availability of a "Master by Gregory" in a 1985 catalog might mean that Rico provided that information to the publisher back in 1965 (when Rico might have had new old stock from 1955).
As an example in this case, we came across a 1958 trade publication that listed Gale Products, Inc. as established in 1946 and incorporated in 1947. We now have proof from the State of California that Gale was incorporated in 1948 and dissolved in 1949. Why it was still listed incorrectly in a 1958 trade directory is anybody's guess. What is really misleading is that Gale Products, Incorporated continued to be listed right up to 1970, when Bay changed the listing by informing the publisher that he had purchased Gale Products, Inc. (which he obviously had not).
I also came across a 1985 resource guide published by the U.S. Department of Health, Education & Welfare, Office of Education that listed:
Charles Bay Clarinet Products, 101 Forest Home Dr., Ithaca, N.Y. 14850. Manufacturers of custom-made hard rubber mouthpieces for clarinet and saxophone families. Bay-Gale Woodwind Products, 4540 Hollywood Blvd. , Los Angeles. 90027. Manufacturers of custom-made hard rubber mouthpieces for clarinet and saxophone families.
I think that it is safe to say that the first entry wasn't accurate in 1985, as Charles Bay had moved to California in 1969. Off by 16 years. Bay-Gale may have been a going concern in 1985, but the address of 4540 Hollywood Blvd? That was Carl Satzinger's original shop address for Gale Products, Inc., a California corporation that had been dissolved 36 years earlier.
And here is an interesting one from The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries in 1956.
“Gale Products, Inc. 4540 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles 27, Calif. Established in 1946.
Makers of hard rubber mouthpieces and
mouthpiece blanks for clarinets and
saxophones. Also manufacture chrome finished metal mouthpieces.
The Gale line is
manufactured in their own plant, from raw material to finished product,
and
incorporates al
l
the latest developments.”
Gale Products, Inc. 4540 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles 27, Calif. Established in 1946. Makers of hard rubber mouthpieces and mouthpiece blanks for clarinets and saxophones. Also manufacture chrome finished metal mouthpieces. The Gale line is manufactured in their own plant, from raw material to finished product, and incorporates all the latest developments.
Again, Gale Product, Inc. (GPI) had been administratively dissolved seven years earlier and was no longer at this address in 1956, a year after the death of Malcolm Gregory. But more importantly, there is absolutely no mention of M.C. Gregory, the "Master" by Gregory, Rico Products, or anything else related to M.C. Gregory in this early listing of products available through GPI.
The Purchaser's Guide also contains a list of trademarks and trade names associated with a listed business. "Gregory," "Master," "Diamond," "Gregory Master," "Gregory Diamond (resonite)" are listed as products produced by Rico. GPI lists only "Gale" as its trademark on hard rubber mouthpieces.
The allegation of a relationship between any Gale business venture and any Rico/Gregory mouthpieces appears only after Cesar Tschudin sold his business to Mr. Bay. Subsequent listings submitted by Bay in 1971 to The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries suddenly include a reference to the "Master" by Gregory. Only then was M.C. Gregory, allegedly a fantastic woodwind musician and mouthpiece maestro, linked to Cesar Tschudin through a complex fictional chain of events.
All available evidence disproves Bay's (then) version of the M.C. Gregory Saga as he first asserted in The Purchaser's Guide and later related to the Saxophone Journal. I say "then" because, in fairness to Mr. Bay, he would change his assertion if he had all of the evidence that we have uncovered.
That's my interpretation from examining old submissions made to The Purchaser's Guide to the Music Industries. For the opposite conclusion, check out Paul's interpretation in his findings at his dropbox.com site. We had the same evidence most of the way through the research, but came to different endings.
Another problem that I have with trade publications (having been in them myself) is that they are not what might be called "peer reviewed." If I'm a home builder, for instance, I can get listed in a trade publication (usually by paying a membership fee) and state that the homes that I build are all constructed of aged French lumber within a tolerance of .001 of an inch. That's what will be printed in the trade journal. If a business claims that their mouthpieces are made completely in house using a super special hard rubber compound, that's what will be printed even though the pieces are generic blanks outsourced from a third-party using standard ebonite (standard ebonite being, well, the standard).
Just as frustrating was trying to garner some evidence from the embossing on vintage mouthpieces. That's what most people look at (that and the shape) and come up with all kinds of information about the history of the mouthpiece. I found that it wasn't generally straight forward. For instance, serial numbers can mean several things. We know (as with some Brilhart pieces) the serial number can indicate the date of production, or the number in a particular production run (with the next batch up or down by 1,000, etc.), or maybe even intermittently numbered to fill particular contracts. There is no requirement that serial numbers have to be sequential, so a serial number on a Rico "Gregory Diamond" would not necessarily reflect how many of these mouthpieces Rico Products produced. Of course, if Malcolm Gregory was being paid piece work for finishing the pieces, as discussed earlier in reference to the census report, the serial numbers may accurately indicate production "on his own account."
The second picture below is an example of an embossing machine used to put serial numbers on mouthpieces. It has a cradle to ensure that each piece is stamped in the same orientation. It has a little lever on it to advance the number for each piece, much like the old "manual advance Bates stamp" shown in this first picture.
Bates stamps for numbering documents.
A lever in front is used to manually advance the number. If you forget to advance, it keeps stamping the same number. Pull it three times and you simply skip those numbers. You can easily change the number for a different model or a production run.
This isn't the machine used at Rico Products on Gregory mouthpieces. Any idea whose serial number stamp this is?
I even looked at the various fonts used by Gregory and Gale and couldn't find any overlap in the type of fonts used (sans serif, different type sets, etc.). Very tedious and not very conclusive.
One area that was interesting was looking closely at serial numbers after Judy Beechler Roan told me that her father, Elmer, had produced the Reloplex at Remlé Musical Products, Inc. I have no reason to doubt her and she will probably come up with more evidence, but I looked closely at the Reloplex and the hard rubber pieces produced by Remlé. Unlike Gale Products, Inc. and the later Tschudin mouthpieces, the Reloplex had serial numbers. Unlike Gregory pieces, the serial numbers were on the barrel next to the table. And unlike most pieces where the serial number is next to the table, Remlé and Reloplex numbers all faced away from the table.
Beechler hard rubber.
Reloplex serial number.
Not exactly incontrovertible evidence. And some early Dukoff fluted chambers were stamped in a similar orientation, although with a different font. I need to see more examples of both early Beechlers and Reloplex. Until then, you are free to fantasize that the Reloplex was made by Bob Dukoff, which I believe is much more likely than it having been produced by Cesar Tschudin.
I've already stated that I didn't think that Cesar Tschudin's Gale (CTG) had anything to do with producing the Rico Reloplex. Since there is no evidence that he had anything to do with Malcolm Gregory or Gregory mouthpieces, the idea that the Reloplex is somehow a "Gregory/Gale" piece is just more mouthpiece make-believe. For instance, where and when did Cesar Tschudin, the ex-jewelry salesman, acquire expertise in thermoset injection molding? Tschudin may have attempted to vulcanize rubber before choosing to simply buy his blanks from JJ Babbitt, but the Rico Reloplex is injection molded plastic, a completely different skill set than for vulcanization requiring a substantial investment in completely different manufacturing equipment. Injection molding equipment for which there is no evidence. The Reloplex mouthpiece make-believe proponents can choose to ignore these facts and claim that Tschudin (or even Gregory) was also a wizard in thermoset technology. But let's look around and see if there is evidence of anybody in our story who had experience with injection molding and maybe the necessary equipment.
Elmer Beechler worked for Arnold Brilhart in New York in the 1940's. At that time, Brilhart was injection molding plastic mouthpieces and fabricating plastic reeds, a relatively new and innovative process. In fact, Brilhart's company had sufficient plastic expertise such that part of its production was commandeered for the war effort. Mr. Brilhart later quipped that he didn't even know the purpose of the little parts that his company fabricated for the U.S. government during WWII, but he assumed that he had made triggers for nuclear bombs. Okay, maybe not so funny, but clearly Elmer Beechler was working for a company that knew how to tool and produce injection molded items, specifically woodwind mouthpieces.
So why would we ever assume that Rico retained Cesar Tschudin, an ex-jeweler with no experience vulcanizing rubber, to produce its new thermoset injection molded plastic mouthpiece? Even the Gale-Reloplex fantasy was left out of the original Gregory Mouthpiece Saga. And I think that Rico's "Gregory Diamond" resonite pieces were also left out, although some might still claim that Tschudin made those despite both a lack of evidence and no such claim in the original Gregory Mouthpiece Saga.
Like the Gregory Model A, the Mickey Gillette, the Jimmy Simpson, the Gregory Diamond, and the "Master" by Gregory, there is actually no claim in any of the old advertising copy that Malcolm Gregory was personally involved in the fabrication of these pieces. Gregory is given credit for the design of some of the pieces (1938 Selmer Showbook No. 1). He allegedly designed them, with the help of others, specifically for his employer, Rico Products. We did not find any public evidence or even an assertion that Malcolm Gregory ever personally fabricated mouthpieces start to finish until after the 1992 Saxophone Journal article that claimed that he committed suicide in 1950 because of glaucoma.
Those who personally knew and worked with Malcolm Gregory only claimed that he collaborated with them to design mouthpieces. No assertion was ever made that Gregory fabricated any Rico Products mouthpieces. "Greg" Gregory only became a fabricator of mouthpieces after a claim was made that he committed suicide in 1950 because of glaucoma, the implication being that he could no longer hand finish mouthpieces. 
Rico Products also held the trademark for the "Mickey Gillette" mouthpiece, but Mickey Gillette contracted glaucoma, committed suicide, and no longer produced these mouthpieces. Would anybody believe that?
We can pretend that Mr. Gregory personally fabricated thousands of mouthpieces through his own company until his eyesight failed and he committed suicide. The problem with the story is that the only credible information we could find was that he worked for Rico Products and, with the help of others, collaborated with others to design a mouthpiece with his name on it. We know that "M.C. Gregory" was a Rico trademark but not much about Malcolm Gregory's actual involvement in production, if any.
We did finally find one place where Malcolm Gregory was listed as a mouthpiece "maker." It isn't anywhere that anyone would think to look, and certainly wasn't a document that Mr. Bay relied on in claiming that an "M.C. Gregory Company" fabricated mouthpieces that he sold primarily through Rico Products. We obtained Malcolm Gregory's death certificate from the Los Angeles County Clerk's office.
And there is a little known production mouthpiece by Rico that appeared just after Mr. Gregory's death. We know that Rico changed the Gregory brand from stating it was from "Los Angeles" (the Model A) to being made in "Hollywood" (the Master). There was a subsequent Rico Hollywood model that doesn't carry the Gregory brand name. It is simply the Rico Hollywood. Maybe after Gregory's death they simply used the Rico name to sell off their remaining ebonite blanks while they ramped up the sales of the new Reloplex model.
The Rico Hollywood in a 4M. Same chamber and tip openings used on other Rico mouthpieces
The Rico Hollywood aka Rico "M.C. Gregory" chamber.For me, the Rico mouthpieces of this era were Rico mouthpieces regardless of what was stamped on them. Malcolm Gregory was an actual person, as was Jimmy Simpson, Mickey Gillette, and Roy Maier. But the M.C. Gregory Saga is a combination of mistake and make believe.
When looking for evidence I tend to prefer, if I can, talking with somebody who has direct knowledge. Even better are contemporaneous public documents. There might still be more of both out there. We are still in contact with Judy Beechler Roan. The Satzinger family's recollections are kind of tapped out. For instance, Gale never saw her grandfather play a musical instrument and thought that, if he had a mouthpiece workshop (which was news to her), it might have been in his basement. She visited him at his home a few times, but they were not very close. In fact, she only learned in 2016 that her grandfather had committed suicide (she learned from a saxophone player who was familiar with the original Gregory Mouthpiece Saga article). And she was, after all, only 5 years old when her father, Carl Satzinger, was involved in Gale Products, Inc. (and maybe 6 when the business was dissolved). Of course, she was unaware that Rico Products was involved. And it was 70 years ago. When I spoke with her, it was obvious that she remembered about the same amount as I do about my own father's business dealings when I was 6.* Finally, a quick property search shows that the house her grandfather lived in does not have a basement. So much for a child's recollection of events.
Gale knew that her father once had a shop that made mouthpieces, and she visited the shop as a child, but she was surprised that mouthpieces embossed with "Gale" were still being sold until 1969 and maybe later. (When first speaking with her I had incorrectly assumed, as was alleged in the original M.C. Gregory Saga, that there had been only one continuous "Gale" mouthpiece business and that it had been affiliated with her grandfather, Malcolm Gregory). She didn't think that her father and her grandfather ever worked together at Gale. She told me that she had never had any connection to a mouthpiece business and had never heard of the "company attorney" Cesar Tschudin. So much for the required elements to make the claims in the original M.C. Gregory Saga seem possible.
There are several Satzinger cousins who think they might have some pictures of Malcolm Gregory and maybe the Gale Products, Inc. shop, but I'm not sure how helpful they would be. Of course, as we have learned, any little bit of evidence might lead to a different path. It is possible, even likely, that there are more public records available. Unfortunately, it gets more costly and time consuming to continue the research (I'm fairly certain that we have spent a lot more time and money on the Saga than Ralph Morgan did because the internet allows for essentially endless fact checking and online ordering of public records).
The Social Security Administration would have Malcolm Gregory's employment records back to 1936 showing whether he was a Rico employee during the entire period (preliminary evidence is that Gregory was only a Rico employee). Social Security records might also confirm that he never worked with Gale Products, Inc. or with Elmer Beechler, or with Mr. Tschudin's subsequent business, or maybe that his employment at Rico ended several years prior to his death in 1955. Or, an SSA search might produce the first shred of plausible evidence of a connection between Malcolm Gregory and Gale Products. More likely, it would produce further proof that there was never a connection.
A FIOA (Freedom of Information Act) claim would have to be processed through the SSA and, if successful, research and copy fees paid. A title search on the Gregory residence might show whether he was in foreclosure at the time of his death (although it appears that he rented his home), or even whether unknown heirs appeared after his death. I know, further research gets a bit morbid and intrusive.
If you have read the prior parts, you will have seen that I was unable to keep my theories to myself in several places. Now it's time for my own conjecture. I've already stated that I did not think it likely that there was any difference between Gregory and Rico, with the "Gregory by Rico" simply being a Rico product badged with the Gregory name. The Rico principals may have been persuaded to have Carl Satzinger produce some additional mouthpieces for them using the trade name "Gale" but, as the evidence indicates, Rico wisely kept the Rico "Gregory" line of mouthpieces completely separate.
Rico Products had trademarked the "Gregory" name early on and came up with a new "Master" line of mouthpieces that were essentially a rebadging of the prior Rico Model A pieces. The main difference is that they no longer had Rico Products, Ltd. embossed on them. The Master line of mouthpieces first appeared in 1950, according to printed literature, and may have been sold throughout the 1950's and maybe even later. As we have seen from the list of assets sold by Gale Products, Inc. to Cesar Tscudin, it is possible to produce an inventory of thousands of blank mouthpieces that might be finished and sold over the following years. So it is hard to say when Rico last produced the "Master" by Gregory. What I have not found is any evidence that the "Master" was ever produced by Gale (either Gale Products, Inc. or Mr. Tschudin's subsequent use of the brand name).
The Rico/Satzinger venture, Gale Products, Inc., appears to have burned brightly and then flamed out within one year of its incorporation. $17,000 was invested, thousands of blanks were either manufactured and/or purchased from third parties, but the business imploded and $7,000 in assets were sold to local jeweler Cesar Tschudin, including thousands of mouthpiece blanks. Tschudin, apparently using the name "Gem" for his new business, formed a brief and unsuccessful business venture with Elmer Beechler. After that venture failed, Tschudin later used the name Gale (after first using the name Gem) and continued to finish the blanks that he had purchased from Gale Products, Inc. It is unlikely that mouthpiece production was Mr. Tschudin's sole source of income. He may have continued his jewelry business, as the production of Gale mouthpieces doesn't seem to have increased over the amount produced by Carl Satzinger and the failure of Gale Products, Inc. Mr. Tschudin purportedly sold enough mouthpieces that he later sourced mouthpiece blanks from J.J. Babbitt, although Mr. Bay did purchase some older blanks from Tschudin in 1969 that appear to have been still in inventory from Tschudin's purchase of blanks from Gale Products, Inc. twenty years earlier.
Rico Products was able to wash its hands of Gale Products, Inc. in 1949 and simply go elsewhere for its mouthpiece fabrication, as it apparently did for the "Roy J. Maier," the "Jimmy Simpson," the "Rico Hollywood," the "Master by Gregory," and the "Rico Reloplex." There is no evidence that Rico ever had anything to do with Tschudin and plenty of evidence that neither Tschudin or Bay had any knowledge of Rico Product's involvement with Gale Products, Inc.
That signature is not just a generic font. It's Malcolm Gregory's actual signature. Here is his WWII draft registration again, with the unique Gregory "g" and "y."
By the time Rico's "Gregory Master" came out circa 1950, Gale Products, Inc. (started in part by Gregory's ex-son-in-law) was gone and some of its assets had been sold to Cesar Tschudin. Based on the timeline, it seems impossible that GPI could have had anything to do with the "Master," although that may actually be the claim made decades later when Charles Bay altered the listing for the long defunct Gale Products in a Music Trades publication based on his mistaken belief that Gale Products, Inc. had once been M.C. Gregory's personal "mouthpiece business."
The detailed listing of assets that Tschudin compiled in 1949 listed his embossing stamps, but it didn't include a "Master" stamp, or a "Master" mold, so it's unlikely that any of the blanks that he purchased were "Master" mouthpieces. Tschudin's inventory didn't list a serial number embossing machine, like the one shown above, which was used on all Rico Gregory brand mouthpieces, including the "Master" (and never on a Gale mouthpiece). And I don't think that Cesar Tschudin would expropriate Malcolm's signature and order a custom stamp in order to produce the "Master" independent of Malcolm Gregory and after Malcolm's death.
Finally, there is Judy Beechler Roan's assessment, based on her father's working with Tschudin for a year, of the likelihood that Cesar Tschudin produced the "Master" by Gregory: "Tschudin was a jeweler and knew nothing about mouthpieces." And remember, Elmer Beechler would have been working directly with Mr. Tschudin during the time when the "Master" was introduced.
The Rico "Master" was trademarked. In fact, all of the names related to Gregory mouthpieces were trademarked. Even if Malcolm's unique signature was not officially registered under a statute, it would be covered by a common law trademark and held to be the exclusive property of Malcolm Culver Gregory. However, in the back of the Publisher's Guide to the Music Industries, all of these trademarks are listed as the property of Rico Products. Mr. Gregory was an employee of Rico, but it turns out that Rico held the right to use his name and signature as an in-house brand name for their mouthpieces.
We now know that he was a manager at Rico. There's no evidence that Mr. Gregory had his own company that made mouthpieces "for" Rico. It might be more accurate to say that he made mouthpieces "at" Rico. He may have made mouthpieces on a piece rate basis, working on his own account or with others (including his wife). Early advertising says that he helped design the Gregory Model A and the Mickey Gillette for Rico. But there is actually no evidence of what exactly Mr. Gregory did as an employee for Rico. That seems strange now after all the speculation, rumors, and assertions surrounding M.C. Gregory mouthpieces.
And here is a thought. Rico clearly stopped production of the "Master by Gregory." That seems a little odd today because those vintage pieces have a cult following. But think of the situation at the time. In the 1940's, Rico had several successful products with well known trade names that they owned: the "Master by Gregory" and the "Gregory Diamond." Then Mr. Gregory commits suicide. How would that have affected Rico's Gregory brand name value? Would you buy a Betty Crocker cookbook if you knew that she shot herself in the head? I would guess that sales might fall off. I don't know Rico's business decision when it stopped production of Gregory pieces, but it clearly did. Well, not immediately. There is the "Rico Hollywood" pictured above that is a "Master by Gregory" but without the Gregory name. It could be that this is how Rico cleared out the remaining inventory.
Rico had introduced a new mouthpiece, the Rico Reloplex, in about 1950. The production of injection molded plastic was faster and less expensive than cooking and hand finishing ebonite mouthpieces. Arnold Brilhart had been doing it for years with the well regarded Tonolin and Ebolin line of mouthpieces, and later with the ARB. Selmer began production of the Goldentone. Beechler began doing the same for Rico Products with the Reloplex. I have no idea how the sales and profit margins of injection molded pieces compare with ebonite, but has Rico continued on to this day with only injection molded pieces. What would have been the affect on Malcolm when Rico Products notified him that it was going with all injection molded mouthpieces? The same affect as glaucoma? By the way, we never came across any evidence of glaucoma. The only mention of it is in the original Saga.
If we ever find any evidence that the "Master" by Gregory continued in production after Gregory's death, I'd probably vote for Elmer Beechler as the producer. It makes more sense to me than imagining that Cesar Tschudin was the producer. If Tschudin was unable to convince Elmer Beechler to work with him, why should we think that Tschudin could convince Rico Products to work with him? And if Rico Products was working with Tschudin the entire time, wouldn't Mr. Beechler have known? Then there is the fact that the chamber plugs required to produce the Rico's line of "M.C. Gregory" mouthpieces were found in Mr. Beechler's old personal property. And most importantly, if Mr. Tschudin had ever worked with Rico, he would have known the basic history of Gale Products, Inc. and the players involved. The original M.C. Gregory Saga could only be so fantastically inaccurate because Mr. Tschudin did not work with Malcolm Gregory, did not produce the "Master" by Gregory, did not have any contract with Rico Products, Ltd., and did not have any M.C. Gregory molds to sell to Mr. Bay.
There is the odd statement in the original Gregory Saga that "In 1969 the making of the mouthpieces was done in part by the J.J. Babbitt Co." Some have thought that the statement meant that J.J. Babbitt ended up with some of the Gale molds (or Gregory molds, if we still fantasize that Tschudin had those). I'm going to go with a different interpretation of that statement. I haven't seen any evidence that Tschudin ever made mouthpiece blanks much beyond those that he obtained in the purchase of some assets from the defunct Gale Products, Inc. Nor have I seen any evidence that Mr. Bay, upon buying out Tschudin, ever produced a single Rico/Gregory mouthpiece.
Let's look at the evolution of the Gale "Companion" produced by Tschudin. Here is an early one, which looks like the mouthpieces produced earlier by Gale Products, Inc. (but without the round GPI logo).
This later model of the Companion is claimed to sound similar to a Meyer, but with some kind of a Paul Desmond vibe. Here is what it looks like:
For more bizzaro claims about alleged Gale mouthpieces channeling the ghost of Malcolm Gregory, check out this blog.Gosh, it even looks like a Meyer. I wonder who produced Meyer blanks and purchased the Meyer company and now makes the Meyer mouthpiece? Here's a hint. J.J. Babbitt. The statement in the M.C. Gregory Saga that "the making of mouthpieces was done in part by J.J. Babbitt." So, Tschudin had been buying his blanks from Babbitt.** Same as with other finishing houses like Bob Dukoff, Woodwind, etc. And we know that Bay continued obtaining and finishing blanks from other vendors. It is a time honored tradition.
This is one of several styles of Riffault blanks used for a Charles Bay mouthpieces.Knowing what we now know and comparing the two Gale Companion pictures above does give us a bit of further evidence. Per his inventory, Tschudin didn't have the round Gale logo stamp in 1949, shortly after purchasing some assets of Gale Products, Inc. He intended to sell "GEM" mouthpieces. We know from Gale Satzinger's family that Gale Products mouthpieces stamped with a round logo indicate Carl Satzinger's involvement. And we know that Tschudin was purchasing mouthpiece blanks from Babbitt. I think that the block letter GALE on the J.J. Babbitt "Companion" is an indication of a Tschudin product. Both of the above "Companion" pieces would likely be Tschudin products.
It gives us a partial timeline. Round Gale is Satzinger, Maier, and de Michele operating GPI. Block Gale is Tschudin and CTG (Cesar Tschudin's Gale). That still leaves out the script Gale embossing like the one below.
I would have initially guessed that this was an early Gale Products, Inc. piece prior to Carl Satzinger developing the round Gale logo. It has the three dots that another piece with round Gale logo had (shown in a prior blog). And it has something closer to a Gregory shape and shank band that later Tschudin Gale pieces didn't have. But then some Gale pieces from the estate of Charles Bay started showing up on Ebay. It appears that the script lettered Gale could be late Tchudin and Bay.
And here's an odd one from the estate of Charles Bay. A mouthpiece embossed Gale that was later drilled to become a "Three Dot" as used on early Gale Products mouthpieces.
A Gale "three dot" that wasn't completed. The white plug has been inserted on the left side but not finished flush to the barrel.
Any brand of blank can be made into a Gale three dot by drilling three holes. This appears to be a Gale three dot made from a Riffault blank.
There remains plenty of unanswered questions. I guess the takeaway from all this is that there is a lot that we don't know. Filling in the unknown areas with musical make believe doesn't really help us. It is entertaining, just like a fairy tale. And one can become an authority by just repeating the fairy tale. So, why does your Gale Companion mouthpiece have that Paul Desmond sound? #1) Because it is really an M.C. Gregory piece just like Desmond's or #2) Because it is a Babbitt blank finished by a jewelry salesman named Cesar Tschudin, who knew nothing about mouthpieces when he purchased some assets from Gale Products, Inc., which was a company started by Carl Satzinger, who was the ex-son-in-law of Malcolm Culver Gregory, who was a Rico employee whose name was trademarked by Rico Products and appeared on Rico mouthpieces similar to one that was used by Paul Desmond. Answer number 2 doesn't have the same fairy tale quality.
Maybe we should be honest with ourselves and admit that there is a lot we don't know. Use our ears, not our eyes, in deciding what sounds good. Easier said than done.
The End (of the blog, but probably not the Saga).
It turns out not to be the end. Charles Bay passed in 2016. Items from his estate have turned up on Ebay, apparently being auctioned off by sellers who have no idea what they have. One of the mouthpieces is shown above. It's going to require an addition to the Epilogue to see if any of the items can shed light on the Gregory Saga. And maybe even yet another blog to protect Ebay purchasers from paying $180 for common Riffault blanks that happened to have passed through the Bay estate.
* A footnote on "Finding Gale" for those of you who might be interested. We immediately found that the M.C. Gregory Saga was all garbled and Gregory's daughter wasn't named Gale. Maybe GALE wasn't a name at all, but an acronym. What did GALE stand for? We searched all kinds of places with all kinds of theories. We knew that Gregory's divorced daughter Maxine (who died in a fire) had a daughter. I started to Google "Gale Gregory" and got a dozen possibilities, none of which panned out. Then, I started searching for Gale Satzinger and got this Pasadena High School yearbook picture (top row).
At that point, I paid to get an account on Ancestry.com and started looking for Gale Satzinger. I tracked her through a first marriage, some additional personal history (though it was all public records), and located her in Colorado. Okay, you can say that I was stalking her. It felt that way to me, also. Instead of contacting her directly, I again used Ancestry.com to identify Carl Satzinger's deceased brother, then his brother's widow, then his brother's widow's obituary and memorial, which finally led me to be able to locate Gale's younger cousin. I contacted the cousin first and explained to her that I was stalking Gale Satzinger, but in a good way. We talked several times about Satzinger family history (Gale had lived with her cousin's family for a while) and she had Gale contact me. I was hoping that Gale could tell me all about the "family attorney," Cesar Tschudin, about whether her grandfather had a mouthpiece business, etc., but she had little knowledge and those were just additional dead ends. Because of my past training, I was aware of the effect of suggestive questioning concerning childhood memories. When Gale said she couldn't remember, I left it at that.
You can see how complex the research is when tracking down the particulars of a 1940's saxophone mouthpiece business. It doesn't surprise me that the history got garbled. And I can understand that some might prefer to keep it that way.
** Some people have interpreted this quotation as meaning that JJ Babbitt took over the production of Gale mouthpieces. No. The quote is "the making of mouthpieces was done in part by J.J. Babbitt." If it was "done in part," what part would that be? Babbitt traditionally provided blanks to finishing businesses. So when Tschudin decided not to finish the remaining blanks that he had purchased from the defunct business Gale Products, Incorporated, we know where he went for blanks (and why "Gale" mouthpiece models changed so much over the years). Same with Charles Bay (when he was not using Riffault or some other provider). The claim that Babbitt took over full production of Gale mouthpieces is a fantasy, although a common one. Unlike the Otto Link and Meyers mouthpiece lines, this is not a claim that Babbitt has ever made. The claim that Babbitt took over full production of any Gregory mouthpieces is even less realistic now that we know the independent business histories of Gregory and Gale. Further, there is the fact that Judy Roan Beechler ended up with the mold plugs required for the re-production of an actual Rico M.C. Gregory brand mouthpiece.
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I was a student of Charles Bay. I was not aware that he had died. I can no mention of it anywhere online, although his website is no longer up. How did you come by this information?
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