Hasn't cleaned up too bad so far, but the tone holes had almost like a thick wax embeddd in them. Guessing most of that was just really old dirt combined with the elements over the last 100 or so years.

Hello.

DO NOT remove the wax...!

(unless you want to spend a lot of time re-tuning your instrument...)

 

All the best...

Hello everyone,

just found this page after 30yrs of owning a Penzel-Mueller clarinet...!

What a trove of information you've got here!

I'm an ex student of Newark Technical College (England), where they run a course in clarinet making and woodwind instrument repair.
(Class of 1990)

One of my lecturers back then (Peter Hudson) collected PM clarinets and let me have a beat-up 'Artist' model (in exchange for a baritone sax mouthpiece).

Serial number is M1068B and is found on both joints. (Top joint, just below the C/B trill key posts, vertically, and Bottom joint; just below the R/H pinky keys, also vertically.
The number 1068 is (hand) stamped into the back of the E/B lever for the L/H pinky.
Both joints and bell sport the eagle logo (head facing to viewer's left, talons clutching three arrows) and underneath the eagle:

PENZEL-MUELLER
LONG ISLAND CITY N.Y.

The bell is also stamped
GEN. GRENADILLA PAT. APPLIED FOR
underneath the stabilising ring at the back of the instrument.

The stabilising rings (bell and top of bottom joint) differ slightly, with the latter resembling more a Selmer profile.
I'm not sure which is the original.

The instrument is a standard 6-ring Boehm system in Bb.
Tuning is excellent at A=440Hz.
The three ringed holes of the R/H show evidence of undercutting by machine and hand.
(The instrument has been hand-tuned).


The instrument required extensive repairs, including pinning of the (partially-crushed) top joint. The barrel is missing, but a modified Selmer series 9 has done the job admirably.

Images to follow tomorrow (after the sun has risen...).

There was no mouthpiece with the instrument and the case is not the original.

Played with a 'GREAT NECK ORIGINAL' mouthpiece, the instrument has a full, rich tone and flexibility that one would expect from a professional standard instrument.