A seller from Farmington, Michigan has a stumbled upon some very interesting vintage reeds. No, not the regular brown box Ricos that some of us grew up with—although he also has some of those as well.
No, I’m talking about some more exotic vintage reeds. Reeds that before the advent of eBay, most of us would likely have never even heard about.
These reeds all appear to have come from the estate of a person who owned or worked in a music store. This is how the seller, theworldsgoods, describes where these items all come from:
Pulled from long, deep storage in a suburban Detroit estate sale… the basement, no less…. I will be offering up a number of vintage musical parts and accessories found in NEW / New Old Stock condition. I can only speculate that someone in the family owned a music store at one time and remainders came home (and then into deep storage). Most items seem to date to the 1940’s and 50’s (maybe even the 30’s).
The first reeds that I found interesting are Vibrator reeds by the Chiron company.
Source: theworldsgoods
This is how the seller describes these reeds:
Chinon [sic] Vibrator
Alto Sax Reed
# 2 1/2
France
Vintage original 1940’s-50’s
Original retail package/box
Quantity: 100
(Frankly, I didn’t count every one. The box is marked 100. There could be a few missing. Maybe there are only 92. But it close to 100. Close to full.)
Condition: New and un-used. New Old Stock. NOS
Over the years I have collected a few different ads for these Chiron Vibrator reeds. The following ad is from 1955.
Source: eBay.com
Bids for these alto sax Vibrator reeds are to start at $24.99. The auction runs until Oct 19. There were no bids yet at the time of writing.
The second vintage reed that theworldsgoods is selling, that I found interesting, is a plastic, alto “Betcha” reed.
Source: theworldsgoods
Now I have written about these reeds before. It was in July I happened to see both alto and tenor varieties of these “Betcha” reeds for sale on a couple of different online sites.
Here is how the seller is describing the alto reed currently for sale on eBay:
Betecha Plastic Reed
Alto Sax
#2
Vintage original 1940’s-50’s
Original retail card/package
Condition: New and un-used. New Old Stock. NOS
Source: theworldsgoods
The auction for this “Betcha” alto reed runs until October 19 as well. The bids for this vintage, plastic reed are to start at $9.99 At the time of writing there was 1 bid on this reed.
The third, and last, vintage reed that I found interesting is another plastic reed. The Futurity reed was made by Maccaferri.
Source: theworldsgoods
If you’re a regular reader of my weblog, you might remember that I wrote an article about the Maccaferri company this past summer. It provides a some background into how the company’s founder, Mario Maccaferri, got into plastics to begin with, and plastic reeds in particular.
This Futurity reed is a different type of plastic reed than the one that I discuss and illustrate in my July article. What’s interesting to note is that the patent number stamped on the Futurity reed, is different from the one on the “Miracle” reed box.
This is how the seller describes the Futurity reed that he currently selling on eBay:
Maccaferri Futurity Reed
Alto Sax
#2 – appears to be apaper label on the reed with a #2 (not positive but seems likely)
Vintage original 1940’s-50’s
Original retail card
Condition: New and un-used. New Old Stock. NOS
Source: theworldsgoods
The auction for this Maccaferri Futurity reed runs until October 19. Bids are to start at $9.99. At the time of writing there were no bids yet on this vintage, plastic alto reed.
If you’re a collector of vintage reeds, there is currently a whole crop of them on eBay. (I didn’t list them all.) Make sure you check out the rest of the items that theworldsgoods is selling. There are some interesting items there. 60+-year-old cork grease anyone? 
Update: The Vibrator alto reeds got 9 bids and sold for $42.57.
The plastic “Betcha” alto reed received 2 bids and the winner paid $15.50 for it. While the Maccaferri Futurity plastic alto reed also received 2 votes, but its buyer only had to pay $9.99 for it.
And finally, the 60+ year old Adams cork grease—albeit a 6 pack—that someone was trying to unload for $12.99 or more, didn’t even get 1 bid. No surprises there… At least not to me.
I’ve got a pretty nice stash of old “Vibrator” reeds, mostly for tenor. About ten years ago I was very into buying, selling and collecting vintage saxophones & I used to find them all the time in sax cases, so I assume they were pretty popular at least for a time. Of course, I found far more old Rico reeds and such, but it kind of surprised me that I would find them so often & that today even the brand name has disappeared from the market.
Actually, I’ve got a pretty nice stash of “vintage” reeds, period. A few of the best “new” reeds I’ve ever played had to be at least fifty or sixty years old!!
Hey there T.K.
Have you ever tried to play these old Vibrators? A friend of mine has a few, but he has never played any of them. I’ve always been curious if these grooves cut in them made any difference.
Despite my being a synthetic reed user now, I totally agree with you on the vintage reed comment you made. I’ve got a drawer full of reeds from the late 70s & early 80s. They play much better than any modern can reed that I have tried. Any NOS boxes of cane reeds that I’ve managed to score over the past few years, I’ve just thrown into my reed drawer. I’m letting them age.
I’m of the opinion that cane reeds, like a fine wine, improve with age. Only with reeds—especially with the crappy ones that are being produced today—the aging process will take much, much longer. :2cents:
I have tried a few of them!! Most of the one I cam across were too stiff for the set-up I was using, but I started using an old Brilhart Hard Rubber tenor mouthpiece that has a relatively closed tip opening. I found a couple of the Vibrators that played very nicely on the Brilhart. I didn’t notice anything super special about the reeds you could attribute to the grooves, though.
I tend to agree with you about reeds getting better with age – though on many of the better old reeds I’ve encountered the grain in the wood seems finer than on most new reeds. That could be a result of the aging, though. Also, I think I’ve read somewhere that one problem with current reed production is that the makers don’t (or cant afford to) let the cane sit and age as long as they used to before it gets cut into reeds.
Oh, there are so many stories about why cane reeds suck so bad compared “to the good old days”, that I don’t know what to believe anymore. Is it that they can’t let the cane age properly? Is it because the good cane has all been harvested (and what… they forgot to collect heritage seeds?) Is it because some alien species collects all the good cane as fuel for their space craft? I don’t know. I just know that I’m frustrated beyond belief by the inconsistencies, and pure crap, that passes for reeds today, and what companies think we should have to pay for these pieces of improperly cured and dried plant life.
Sad thing is, even synthetic reed manufacturers have had their share of inconsistencies over the years. Fibracell being a great example… What were they thinking? Anyone who has used their product for more than 10 years can tell you about the not-so-good-qualities-of-cane-reeds that they’ve started to imitate over the past 4 or 5 years. I wonder how many customers Fibracell lost. I’m sure I’m not the only one. People who jumped on the Fibracell train late won’t know any different, but their reeds were much, much, better in the past.
All these hassles make me wish some days that I had taken up a brass instrument. 😡
I agree with everything you said, except Fibracells, but only because I’ve never played ’em.
It would have been interesting to have that 100-pack of alto “Vibrator” reeds and see what the ratio of good to bad reeds is. Of course, that may be the picked-over remains of many good boxes – the ones with obvious flaws!!
Oh and brass player find plenty to carp about — I know, I moonlight in trumpet.
Hi Helen,
I had been meaning to comment on this while the auction was still active, but got otherwise busy in my life away from the keyboard.
IMHO, reed manufacturers are victims of their own success. There is a finite amount of cane that can be harvested at any given time, and as a living thing, there is only so much of it that is suitable for use as reeds for musical instruments. As the demand increases, the quality can only go down because there is no other cane to meet the demand. I suspect something similar might have happened with Fibracell. As the manufacturing facilities become more widely distributed to meet the demand, the ability to maintain quality control becomes increasingly more difficult.
Concerning the Vibrator reeds, the grooves contribute nothing directly to the sound. One thing I did find was that removing some of the bark like that allows the reed to expand and contract more uniformly with changes in humidity, which makes it much less likely to warp or split. Mostly due to care in the preparation of the blanks, I would estimate that perhaps 90 out of 100 reeds would be consistently decent, with maybe 2 in 100 outstanding.
There was another brand from that era that I intended to comment on as well. This was the “Symmetricut” by Ciccone. Despite the gimmicky shape, these really are consistently above average. In an unopened box, I would guess about 1 in 25 would be a “clunker”, and that only because of the coarseness of the grain. This consistency is the result of careful preparation and selection of the blanks, even before they are milled and graded. Simply making sure that the grain is properly aligned with the axis of the reed is 99% of what makes a reed reliable. Everything else can be adjusted for after the fact, but if the grain isn’t right it’s just **** on a shingle. I sometimes wonder whether there isn’t a patent issue that inhibits the wider adoption of whatever method Ciccone used in order to achieve such consistent results. I see that there are several lots of “Symmetricut” reeds currently on offer at eBay. Of course I have no way of knowing whether this is the reed for you, but I will say you would only need to try 2 or 3 of them to find out, they are that consistent and predictable.
Yeah, sax players with their mouthpieces and necks, brass players with their mouthpieces and lead pipes — just be glad you don’t have something as fussy or outrageously expensive as a bassoon bocal or a flute head to play with. 😉
p
Interesting theory on the Fibracell. Might be the case. However, they actually changed the composition of their reeds with the introduction of the Premier line. I wonder if that they put more quality control into their Premiere reeds? Too bad I don’t like those reeds at all.
I’ve heard of the Ciccone reeds, but I can’t remember what they look like now. I’ll have to look them up.
At this point I’ve found that the Legere Signature Series works for tenor. I’m used to them now, and quite like them. I still have a boatload of Fibracell (the good kind) for baritone. By the time those run out, perhaps Legere will start making a Signature Series baritone reed.
I do like Harry Hartmann’s Fiberreed (the carbon variety) for alto. I’ll have to figure out what I’m going to do with soprano reeds at some point, but I play the little nasty beast so infrequently, that I can coast a while on the Fibracells that I have. I’ll likely give the carbon reed from Harry a try on soprano as well however, and see if it works.
Anyways, as you say, we can be thankful that don’t have more expensive things to mucky around with.
DO you have any Ciccone SYmetricut 2.5 reds for tenor, Old Rico Brown Box 2.5 for tenor or Vibrator 2.5 reeds for tenor? If so e-mailme at Lweintraub1@cox.net
I am not a dealer of any kind. Check eBay, or other online sources like Reverb.
I’ve sometimes had luck finding stuff at brick and mortar stores when they clean out their basements and old stock rooms.