Making Your Own Otto Link Slant Signature Tenor Mouthpiece - Part 1

I promised to write this blog about a year ago, but I was distracted and wrote Part 2 first.  In Part 2, we learned how to make an official Link Slant Signature ligature.  Now we need an official Slant Signature mouthpiece to go with it.  As with creating the ligature, we will need a blank, preferably an inexpensive blank.  We know where Mr. Link got his blanks.  He got them from the JJ Babbitt Company.  We might not want to admit that, but it is by far the most likely provider.  

As in prior blogs, I am going to proceed using the rule of critical thinking that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  When we looked for proof that Mr. Link had a special recipe for his vulcanized rubber mouthpieces, we found none.  When we looked for proof that Mr. Link vulcanized his own mouthpieces, we found none.  When we looked for proof that Mr. Link cast his own metal mouthpieces, we also found nothing.  In fact, when we look for proof of manufacturing, we find just the opposite evidence.

Here is a little background.  Otto Link was born in New York on April 12, 1897.  Otto registered for the draft August 24, 1918.  At the time, he was working for Alexander Selmer at the main store at 1579 Third Avenue in New York.  He may have been involved in instrument repair or even instrument fabrication.  

The signature that will later appear on his mouthpieces.  He is married to Clara Link, although "wife" is in parenthesis.  There are two Selmer advertisements on this 1919 magazine page that show Selmer's 1579 Third Avenue address (in the Selmer Building).

Mr. Link enlisted on October 21, 1918.  He was discharged two month's later on December 21, 1918.  By 1920, he lists himself on the census as a salesman in the music industry.  According to a 1923 advertisement in Music Trades, Otto Link and Frank Meyer (later of Meyer Brothers mouthpieces) then partnered in an instrument repair shop in New York City.  Nothing in the advertisement indicates that they were involved in the manufacture of mouthpieces, only repair of instruments.  In the 1925 New York State census, he is living with his aunt and his one year old daughter, Claire, and is employed as an instrument repairman.

In the 1930 census, he is living with his wife, Adelaide, which I think is correct, and daughter Claire.  He is employed as a "repairman" in New York's musical district.  Again, instrument repair.  Not bronze casting and brazing required to produce a metal mouthpiece.  Not light industrial needed to machine and manufacture complex mouthpiece molds.  Not chemical engineering to develop a unique quality of vulcanized rubber.  Not a pipe fitter that can build and operate a steam autoclave for vulcanizing hard rubber mouthpieces.  An instrument repair shop.  By the 1940 census, Mr. Link list himself as involved in the manufacturing of musical items.  A mid-1930's advertisement for his shop stated that, in addition to instrument repair, he also performed woodwind mouthpiece modifications.

I have seen some posts on the internet that claim that Otto  Link worked for the William S. Haynes flute company in Boston in the 1920's.  Since I don't consider internet claims evidence, I can say that I have never seen any evidence of that.  Documentary evidence shows that in 1918, he was in N.Y.  In 1920, he was in N.Y.  In 1923, he was in N.Y.  In 1925, he was in N.Y.  In 1930, he was in N.Y.  I'm going to conclude that he didn't work for Haynes in Boston.

I could only find a couple of pictures of Mr. Link in his shop and it consisted of Mr. Link at a work bench surrounded by light milling machinery consistent with the facing of woodwind mouthpieces.  

Facing a blank.

This next picture shows Mr. Link on the set of the PBS show Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.  Otto appears to be in the living room and wearing an official Fred Roger's uniform consisting of a tie and sweater.  

Just kidding, the picture really is Mr. Rogers.  But none of the pictures of Mr. Link that I could find brings to mind the light industrial manufacturing necessary for the vulcanization of rubber.  One can't cast or braze bronze mouthpieces wearing a tie and sweater in an office.  Let's look at the rest of his production facility shown at the bottom of this page.

Again, there was no evidence of the fairly heavy manufacturing equipment required for actually producing a vulcanized rubber mouthpiece or the even more elaborate equipment required for casting molten metal to make metal mouthpieces. The Link pictures are consistent with the finishing and facing of blanks sourced from other providers.

The address of the above shop, and later Link shops, are readily available on the web.  Some of the addresses are even printed on old Otto Link mouthpiece boxes.  His various shop addresses also reveal that it was unlikely that actual mouthpiece manufacturing was going on at any of his N.Y. locations.  Although I found that some addresses had permits for low pressure steam (for heat), there were no permits for the high pressure heat needed for an autoclave to vulcanize hard rubber mouthpieces.  In fact, several of his addresses were in buildings with other musical instrument repair businesses, student music lessons, and even above a restaurant.  Those are not the places where the City of New York was going to license a coal-fired steam boiler operated by a licensed engineer (as I believe would have been required for vulcanizing mouthpieces).  Nor would the casting of molten metal and the brazing of "bell metal" mouthpieces be allowed above a theater or a deli, which is where Mr. Link had his N.Y. shops. 

If somebody comes up with evidence that Mr. Link actually manufactured the mouthpiece blanks, we can change our minds.  But in the mean time, we can assume that Mr. Link obtained his blanks elsewhere, probably from JJ Babbitt in Elkhart, Indiana.  Why Babbitt?  Again, that's just where the evidence leads.  Babbitt made, and still makes, blanks for other businesses.  Babbitt ended up with the entire production of Otto Link mouthpieces after Mr. Link sold his business (if he sold it).  

There is a common nomenclature, which we will see is kind of silly, that in approximately 1974 JJ Babbitt begin making Links in-house and those pieces are called "Early Babbitt" Links or "EB" Links.  Kind of silly since the evidence is that Babbitt had been producing the Link blanks for decades prior to the "Early Babbitt" pieces.  Truth be told, "Early Babbitt" pieces go back at least to the "Slant Signature" Tone Edge.  It is possible that some of the "Eburnated Bar" Link pieces (supposedly machined from rod rubber) were actually molded, as there is no way for us to tell and the idea of "truth in advertising" has never applied to musical instruments or accessories.  

As we have seen, for musical instruments and accessories, when the item "sounds fantastic," that is sufficient reason to buy it.  When a story about the item "sounds fantastic," that is also reason to buy it.  Musicians then repeat the fantastic story to each other, and others buy it.  Then as now, an instrument seller can claim whatever it thinks that a potential customer might swallow.  A nonsense claim like "a silver-plated ligature adds sparkle to the sound" stills plays today, no pun intended.  The ligature purchaser justifies the extra expense by  telling other players the fantastic story and a it becomes a "fact." 

Regardless of who actually compression molded and cooked the ebonite pieces finished by Mr. Link, the early Link hard rubber piece did have several slightly unique feature when compared to its contemporaries.  Although some would like to think that it was a super-special hard rubber recipe, or at least a unique chamber shape, I think that it is actually a couple of exterior features that tend to separate Links from the standard mouthpieces of the era.  

Many of saxophone mouthpieces in the 20's and 30's had a rather thick shank with a distinctive bulb on the end.  This picture is of a fairly common "Early Babbitt" mouthpiece that is not a Link (on the exterior).  I'm going to refer to these pieces as No Name Early Babbitt or NNEB.  There were, as we will see, many other finishers of large chamber Babbitt mouthpieces, but calling them all NNEB will save time and space.

The bulb on the NNEB might cause us some problems in making a Link.  One of the things we probably will want to do is to reduce the thickness of the table.  That is one way that vintage Links often differ from their large chamber cousins of the same era.  

The second common difference between the vintage Tone Edge and the NNEB is material.  If you have read the blog on how mouthpiece material matters, you probably know where this is going.  We might need to change the thickness of the material (the quality of the material, i.e., the ebonite used by JJ Babbitt for saxophone mouthpiece blanks being the same).  Most NNEB pieces have a steep beak, even steeper than is needed for a large chamber zero baffle interior.  Look at the above linked blog (at picture #6) and, if your NNEB is thick enough, feel free to drop the shape of the beak.  If the beak material thickness is reduced, that gets us closer to a vintage Link Tone Edge.

It is also a good time to remove tooth gouges.  Here is a NNEB beak reduction that almost has the old tooth gouge completely removed (it is the darker spot).  After reducing the thickness of the beak, it is even more important that you use a tooth guard.  But when purchasing your NNEB, tooth gouges, if not too deep, reduce the price and do not matter when fabricating our Otto Link Slant Signature.

Now, it is time to go shopping for a NNEB "cadaver" or "carcass" to be modified into an Otto Link Slant Signature.  Here is a good one.

Above is the perfect candidate for several reasons.  First, it has the shank shape that we want.  It is a vintage Babbitt with a "waist," i.e., an area that is thinner than the bulb on the end of the shank.  Even when the seller doesn't describe the chamber shape, these are the NNEBs that most often have the large "Link" chamber.  Second, there is no brand name embossed on it.  Most bidders will not bid just because of that reason.  Third, the seller claims that it is a "Conn or Buesher" (sic).  Many bidders will see that the seller 1) does not know anything about vintage mouthpieces and 2) is willing to make stuff up.  That keeps many bidders away.  Finally, the mouthpiece has a century's worth of calcified spittle gunk crusted on to the interior, a little tooth gouge on the beak, and a tip rail that is worn and ragged.  This mouthpiece is what I call a NNEB POS.  Perfect.  Absolutely perfect.

It is the final attribute (the gross chamber) that is most important to us.  When a mouthpiece looks like this one, and the seller takes good pictures, the bid (or at least my bid) isn't likely to go higher than $15.  And the fact is, I don't care about the interior gunk, the tooth gouges, or the beat up tip.  I'll soak the mouthpiece over night in vinegar, then rinse it with cold water and a drop of sanitizer, and then something like this to neutralize any sulfur smell.  Now I'm ready to proceed.

But first, let's make sure that we are not mistaken in trying to create a real genuine vintage Slant Signature.  Are other people doing this?  Here is a recent Ebay auction for a vintage large chamber hard rubber mouthpiece, what I have been calling a NNEB.  This particular one does have a name.  It's called a "Vibrator," a trade name used by the Chiron Co. as we found out in a prior blog.  Here is one opened up to a Link 8 or .110.

The large Link Tone Edge chamber and scooped sidewalls.

The little Link baffle.

The Vibrator name embossed on this Early Babbitt mouthpiece.

The mouthpiece refacer's name embossed on the mouthpiece.

So what?  Why would I refer to it as Link Slant Signature?  Here is the text from Ebay.

I have for sale a vintage Vibrator Hard Rubber tenor saxophone mouthpiece refaced by Theo Wanne to 8. They are made of very good hard rubber, have some baffle and large chamber with scooped side walls. According to Theo they are the closest thing to Slant Otto Link. Will ship worldwide.

Sakshama

We can learn a couple of things from this.  First, I'm not the only one who thinks that you can make a Link Slant Signature from a NNEB.  Other people, with more knowledge about mouthpiece facing that I have, also agree.  Second, NNEBs are made with "very good hard rubber."  I think that we can extrapolate from that and say that Babbitt mouthpieces are made of "very good hard rubber" (it is called ebonite).  Unless we can find some evidence or fabricate some reason why Babbitt would use one rubber recipe for Vibrator pieces and another for Link pieces and another for Penzel Mueller, etc., I think we have to drop our silly notion of super-duper vintage hard rubber used on a particular Babbitt product.

Well, I didn't get to the end of my fabrication process.  Since I already did Part 2 of this blog months ago (regarding making your own honest-to-God Otto Link Slant Signature ligature), I'm going to have to finish this blog as Part 3.

Riffault Mouthpieces - Part 3

I wrote a Part 3 about a year ago concerning Riffault mouthpieces and how often they are miss-identified on the web.  After 34 people had viewed it, I went back to add more to the blog and I managed to delete the entire blog!  Operator error.  I was so discouraged that I left the topic alone for a year.  I may try to rewrite the entire thing, but for now I'm just going to concentrate on one area that I found interesting.  That is some common and continuing misrepresentations about Gerry Mulligan's mouthpiece.

You have probably heard that Gerry Mulligan's baritone mouthpiece was a Rico M.C. Gregory brand.  You may have read the Stuff Sax blog on Lester Young's mouthpieces.  Like Mr. Young, Mulligan actually played a variety of mouthpieces during his long career.  No surprise and I have no doubt that Mulligan could have played a Rico Gregory at one point, or a Gale brand mouthpiece, but does that mean that is what a baritone player needs to sound like Gerry Mulligan?  I don't think so and I'll try to explain why.

First, we should just look at a few Rico Gregory baritone mouthpieces.  These are from various mouthpiece websites.

We should notice a couple of things about these pictures.  First, M.C. Gregory baritone pieces varied over the years.  Not just the band material and its placement.  The actual mold.  The first M.C. Gregory piece shown above has a shank that tapers and then goes to a final straight section before the band.  The second picture shows a slightly longer and slimmer Gregory piece that has a continuous taper down the entire shank (which is also longer) and a different style of metal band.  The third picture isn't really an M.C. Gregory brand.  It is a Gale.  That picture is from Theo Wanne's website, which states that Gerry Mulligan played a Gale mouthpiece, not an M.C. Gregory.  Here is the accompanying picture from the Wanne website.

What does any of this have to do with Riffault mouthpieces?  Well, forget for a moment about Gerry Mulligan and his famous M.C. Gregory mouthpiece that was really a Gale mouthpiece.  We know that both Gregory and Gale baritone mouthpieces have metal bands on the shank, as shown above.  The area where the metal band was added was actually molded into the shank.  The cast ebonite had to be thinner where the band was to be placed and then thicker further up the shank to be even with the thickness of the metal band.  In other words, a mouthpiece cast in a Gregory or Gale mold had to have a metal shank band.

Look at Gerry's mouthpiece pictured above.  There is clearly no band. That cannot be a Gregory or a Gale.  It looks suspiciously like a Riffault.

A Riffault baritone piece with the thin shank, a "lip" between the shank and the barrel, and no metal band.

Check out these well known pictures of Gerry at his finest.

No band on this long shank baritone mouthpiece.  

No band on this long shank mouthpiece, either.

What, no shank band again?  Was this picture taken during the "he sounds like crap" phase of his career?

If you check out Mr. Mulligan's discography, you will see that, where there are pictures that show his mouthpiece, it is not a banded Rico or Gale.  When he "meets" Ben Webster, Paul Desmond, etc., he is not recording with a banded Gale mouthpiece. 

A very strange band on this baritone mouthpiece later in his career and, again, not the shank shape of either a Rico Gregory or a later Gale baritone mouthpiece.  It does have the three white dots, but that doesn't mean that it is a standard Rico or later Gale mouthpiece, as we will see.  And check out the difference in the shank length between this one and the one shown above.

Maybe he had an Ideal mouthpiece (one of many trade names used on a Riffault stencil) like this one below.  Riffault blanks were also used for Gale and Bay mouthpieces.  It does have the "lip" between the shank and the barrel like the ones shown above and no metal band.  I have never seen an early picture of Mulligan playing a banded-shank mouthpiece.
  

Check out Mr. Mulligan's discography.  Most of his recording career was not with a Gale mouthpiece (and apparently never with an M.C. Gregory piece).  If you like his recordings, and you think that the mouthpiece makes the player, you don't want a Gale mouthpiece, you just need a mouthpiece with three white dots  (I'll show how that was done at the end of the blog).  I'm guessing that you would be better off with a stencil from Riffault.  Play what Mulligan played when he made his name.  

There is, of course, still some confusion with Gale mouthpieces being conflated with M.C. Gregory mouthpieces.  We've seen that in the multi-part blog about Rico Products producing Gregory pieces and being temporarily involved with Gale Products.  But since both brands all had metal shank bands on the baritone pieces, they are clearly not the mouthpiece being played by Mr. Mulligan in most of the pictures shown above.

Judy Beechler Roan has the original M.C. Gregory brand chamber plugs for alto, tenor, and baritone.  They are shown below in their cardboard tubes stamped with the Rico diamond and Gregory trademarks.  

Notice that we can see the flat "window" areas of these Gregory size 18 chamber plugs (on the top left and middle right).  That is the area that the reed would eventually cover up on a finished mouthpiece.  The M.C. Gregory chamber plugs had a threaded hole in that area.  The real Gregory molds have not yet been located, so it isn't clear exactly how these plugs were fastened into the mold for compression of the uncured rubber.

Here is a picture of a baritone mold sold as part of the estate of Charles Bay and likely acquired from Cesar Tschudin, a Los Angeles jewelry salesman, who bought some molds and inventory from Gale Products, Inc. when it went out of business in 1949. 
  

The "ring" on the shank end of the mold creates the shape that will later hold the metal band used on  all Gale baritone mouthpieces.  It would not be possible to cast a Gale baritone mouthpiece without the indentation.

Notice that the window area of this plug passes out through the mold and is secured in place through machined pin holes.  It may be possible to produce a banded Gale baritone mouthpiece with this mold, but the actual M.C. Gregory baritone chamber plugs could not work with this mold.  The mold can't produce a Gregory baritone piece because it can't use the Gregory chamber plug (which is in Judy Beechler Roan's attic).  And it most certainly could not produce a piece identical to the baritone mouthpiece(s) that Mulligan played most of his career (as we have seen above) because it would have to have a metal band to fill in the void left by the mold.  

Here are two pictures of what an"un-banded" Gregory or Gale mouthpiece would look like when it came out of the mold or if the band had fallen off (as happened with this one).

The mold forms the indentation that will later receive a thin brass band.  You simply cannot have a Gregory or Gale baritone mouthpiece with the shank shape shown in the early Mulligan photos above.  If a band were placed on a baritone shank that did not have the mold indentation, it would stand proud of the rest of the shank and also clearly not be a mouthpiece from a Gale or Gregory mold.

If you look closely at the Mulligan pictures above, it does look like the mouthpieces that he was playing at one point had the three white dots on them like those used on some Gale brand mouthpieces.  But not all Gale embossed mouthpieces started out as Gale produced mouthpieces.  By that I mean that we know that Gale marketed mouthpiece using blanks obtained from other wholesalers.  Here are some Gale mouthpieces made from  blanks sourced from Babbitt and Riffault.

Bay/Gale also used Riffault blanks (one actually embossed with Riffault).

Below is a Gale branded mouthpiece that was not originally a "Three Dot" being made into a Three Dot.  This is from the estate of Charles Bay.

A Gale 440 being transformed into a Gale Three Dot.  Tap three holes and insert a white filler.  Thus, a Gale Three Dot baritone mouthpiece can be made from blanks obtained from any manufacturer.  The Gale name and three white dots can be added to any maker's blank, as was apparently done for Mr. Mulligan.

So what were the blanks used to make Mulligan's mouthpieces shown above?  As I said above, it sure looks like a Riffault and doesn't have the metal band used on all Rico Gregory and Gale Products, Inc. baritone mouthpieces.  It could be that Mulligan's blank was sourced from Riffault.

Someone who is willing to purchase a piece allegedly pressed from an old Gale mold based on a representation that it is essentially "Mulligan's M.C. Gregory mouthpiece" would likely disagree, despite the fact that Mulligan didn't play a Rico Gregory piece.  For others, you might want to try a $60 vintage Riffault baritone piece first.  That appears to be what Mulligan had.  Tapping three holes and filling them with white plastic might be necessary to make it sound authentic.  Maybe I'll try that with an old Riffault or Babbitt piece and see if I sound like Gerry.

The Acousticut Saxophone Mouthpiece and Ligature

Here's a little blog about the Acousticut saxophone mouthpiece and ligature.  Warren Sumner Swanson was a clarinet player and produced quite a few well-regarded clarinet mouthpieces as well as saxophone mouthpieces.  Although "Sumner" was his middle name, I'm going to use that as the name for him and his mouthpieces because that is the terminology player's are familiar with.  And I am going to concentrate on his saxophone mouthpieces.  

Some have claimed that Sumner started by making mouthpieces from rod rubber, but soon changed to using molded blanks.  I've heard that story about other "makers" and have seen very little evidence, in fact, in the case of Sumner, no evidence whatsoever.  I've quoted G. Langenus before, stating that by 1922 about 90% of all mouthpieces were finished from molded blanks (footnote 2), so if Sumner used rod rubber when he started in 1945, he would have been one of the extremely rare outliers.  And he would have invested in some expensive and unnecessary equipment for his first couple of mouthpieces.  Combine that with the fact that nobody has ever seen one.

Sumner was born September 24, 1919 in Minneapolis.  His father, an emigrant from Sweden, was a rail road engineer.  He was the youngest of five (17 years younger than his oldest brother).  Both of his older brothers became dentists.  He lived with an older brother while attending university (two years) and, although he registered for the draft, was not drafted. He married Helen Ormseth in 1961, when he was 42.  He was active in the University of Minnesota General Extension Division, which held occasional seminars on the manufacture, repair, and maintenance of woodwind instruments.

I have read a claim that he had specific molds made and shipped them to Germany to have his blanks fabricated at the Hamburger Gummi-Warren factory. As we will see in a minute, like many claims about mouthpiece fabrication, this is unlikely.  It is also implied that he had an exclusive U.S. distribution contract with Hamburger Gummi-Warren, as he reportedly re-sold "his" blanks to other mouthpiece finishers (including Frank Kaspar and Charles Bay).  We know that Kaspar and Bay also bought direct from Riffault et Fils in France, so the fact that they had access to the same blanks as Sumner does not mean that they bought their blanks from Sumner.  It is more likely that they all purchased directly from Hamburger Gummi-Warren and Riffault et Fils.

The Acousticut tenor and alto saxophone mouthpiece comes in three iterations that I have seen so far, a fourth distinct shape for baritone, and a fifth for soprano.  On alto and tenor, the first is a large chamber piece, similar to an Otto Link Tone Edge.  In fact, when I put the facing off of my old Tone Edge on an Acousticut, I couldn't tell much difference when played.  It is always impossible to tell if the variation in sound is some minute and invisible difference in the chamber or in the lay.  Players often say that they tried 5 or more Tone Edge 6* for instance, and picked the best one (for them).  So even "identical" mouthpieces have differences.  My experience is that the Acousticut below, with a Link facing, can fit right into the spectrum of vintage Tone Edge mouthpieces (and at a fraction of the cost).

The price has doubled on these, but they are still a good deal for use as a blank.

The "Five Band" ligature line is the most obvious characteristic of this model.

Big round chamber.

Large undercut on the side walls just like the Link Tone Edge.

The original embossing was in gold except for the tip number.  Three is common and might be the best for refacing.

Sort of a "zero baffle" look on the originals, but they don't play stuffy as would be expected.  The small tip opening allows for the creation of a little baffle when the tip is opened. 

A #3 facing opened up enough to create a baffle.  They don't need much, but be aware that it will never be a shrill screamer type of piece.  This was only opened to .081.

The Five Band Acousticut was one of my first experiments with putting a Link facing curve on to another old rubber piece.  I can tell the Acousticut apart from my Slant Signature only if I put on my reading glasses.  In the dark, they play the same.  In fact, I prefer the Acousticut.  The price on old Link Slant Signatures has gone crazy.  Mine is now worth more than my tenor saxophone.  Best to leave it at home in the safe.

Here is the second style of Acousticut.  It is identified by four bands on the shank and a medium sized round chamber.

I didn't think to take pictures until I had leveled the table and started to change the facing.

Here, the facing curve has been changed, the initial abrasive blasting of the chamber done, and the tip rail is being reduced and baffle formed.

A little polishing of the baffle using fine emery paper and an old reed split into thirds.

Finished.

The chamber is smaller on these models and, maybe for that reason, I thought that they lacked the "color" of the Five Band.  Maybe it's just me.

The final Acousticut model that I have seen is also the rarest.  That's okay with me, because I liked it the least.  It has kind of a "wine bottle top" shaped shank.  It appears that they are still available, as this picture is from weinermusic.com where it sells for $115.

I didn't care for it and didn't even bother to reface the used one I got off of Ebay.  So my dislike may be unfounded.  Here is a picture of one for sale on Ebay for $85.  The seller says it has been refaced, but is still "original," whatever that means.  The original tip rail appears to have been torn up.  Maybe that is "refaced" but still original?

Now, back to the idea that Sumner had his own molds at Hamburger Gummi-Warren.  Although the claim seems plausible at first glance, it appears less so when we now know that Acousticut saxophone mouthpieces evolved over the years, both internally and externally.  There are at least three iterations of the tenor sax mouthpiece.  The alto and soprano also changed over the years.  Who knows how much the Sumner clarinet pieces changed over the years, but as we have seen, those were also available to other finishing businesses.  So my question is "why change molds?"  And, unlike the minor changes to the Otto Link Tone Edge over the decades, why make radical changes to the exterior and chamber?  

The simple answer would be that Sumner did not have proprietary molds in Europe.  He, like many finishing businesses, was at the mercy of his supplier.  He didn't "sell" his blanks to others, but others did have access to the same blanks.  Here is an example of a Sumner Acousticut baritone piece.  Notice that the exterior shape and ligature lines differ from the any of the Sumner pieces shown above, most obviously by the lack of a "lip" at the end of the "beak."

Some of you may recognize this shape as a "Wagner" baritone mouthpiece.  Did Sumner sell to Wagner or did Wagner sell to Sumner?  More likely, it is another offering from Hamburger Gummi-Warren that was also used by Wagner and others.  It could be that the market share of baritone pieces was too small to worry about whether the Acousticut baritone was the same shape as the rest of the Acousticut line.  But it does further weaken the claim that Sumner had proprietary molds.  

Any proprietary molds, had they existed, would have been sold as a part of the W.S. Sumner Company when it was purchased by The Saxophone Shop, Ltd. in 1980.  The new owner made no claim of taking possession of the Sumner molds.  In fact, the third iteration of the Acousticut mouthpiece (the "wine bottle top") appeared at about that time, further evidence of a lack of proprietary molds.  

The non-existence of proprietary molds does not, in my experience, weaken the claim that the older Sumner Acousticut mouthpieces can be great, especially if you are a fan of the Otto Link Tone Edge.

Sumner also had some ligatures with his logo on them.

We have seen that ligature before in a prior blog.  It is a rare Otto Link Slant Signature ligature that was not properly stamped!!  Either that or Mr. Sumner, like Mr. Link, merely stamped a commonly available ligature.  

It is unique in that the thumb screws have little plastic or resin coated heads.

Look, there actually is an Otto Link "A" stamped on it!!  Maybe the ligature was a rare collaborative effort of Otto Link and Warren Sumner Swanson!!  Wait until the suckers collectors start bidding on these!!

The ligature is also different in that there is a "Patent Pending" stamp.  What is it about the Acousticut ligature that was 1) new, 2) useful, and 3) non-obvious?  Those are the three main requirements for a U.S. patent to be granted.  Well, the ligature has black screw heads.  Okay, maybe that is new.  What can we make up about black screw heads that is useful?  And what is ingenious (non-obvious) about black screw heads?  I can't come up with anything, and a search to locate either the patent or the patent application at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed nothing.

When searching for U.S. patents on mouthpiece ligatures, it reads like a who's who of famous woodwind instrument personalities, including Anthony Gigliotti, Walter Gemeinhardt, George Bundy, Henri Selmer, Bernard Van Doren (several), Florian Tudor, Philip Rovner (multiple), Daniel Bonade, Frederic Parme (of Vibrator fame), Vito Platamone, Robert Harrison, Hippolyte Chiron (also of Vibrator fame), Mario Maccaferri, Vito Pascucci (of Vito fame), Allan Theodore Wanne (sorry for the "unmasking," Theo), and hundreds of others.  I'll also unmask Clinton Runyun, aka "Santy."  (Santy was more than just a mouthpiece guy, here is his patent for a fishing reel).

Warren Sumner Swanson does not show up in any patent searches.  Not even for fishing reels.  So I guess that we will never know what is so novel and beneficial about the Acousticut ligature.  Maybe some Acousticut ligature owners can comment on the advantage of black screw heads on a ligature.


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