Clothespins, Ukuleles, Guitars, Violins, 8 Track Tapes, & Reeds

Source: eBay.com

Here’s a question for you: What do plastic clothes pins and today’s eBay find of a vintage, plastic reed by Mario Maccaferri have in common?

Source: eatonrapidsjunkbarn

Well… If you said that they were likely invented by the same person, you would be absolutely correct.

Mario Maccaferri, and his wife Maria, founded the French American Reeds Manufacturing Company, in Paris, France in 1939. Business dealings resulted in the couple and their infant daughter emigrating to the United States, and taking up residence in New York City that same year.

Also in 1939, Mario Maccaferri attended the World’s Fair in New York. This would prove to be a turning point for this Italian inventor.

It was at this World’s Fair that Mario became fascinated with a new material: plastic. Plastic would prove to be Maccaferri’s goldmine, in that he would become an inventor who was on the forefront of numerous technologies and markets, which often combined plastics and music.

Maccaferri’s first invention was the plastic reed, which was patented on December 10, 1940.

Source: eatonrapidsjunkbarn

In the patent application Mario claimed:

The present invention is based upon a certain principle discovered by me. I have found in the operation of reeds that it is necessary that the longitudinal margins of the reed must be much denser or stiffer than in the central portion, and the longitudinal central portion forms the active vibratory part of the reed, instead of the entire reed both longitudinally and transversely considered. This closer density in the marginal portions compared to the central portion enables the central portion to freely vibrate and the denser portion to rest A upon the walls of the mouthpiece. Furthermore, dependent upon the cohesion of the molecules of the material of which the improved reed is made, variations in curvature, in depth of the vibratory A membrane, in the thickness of the marginal walls, and in the tone chamber of the improved reed, require consideration.

Source: M. MACCAFERRI REED PATENT ON GOOGLE PATENTS

On the Maccaferri Reed website it describes how the plastic reeds came about. When French cane was no longer available to the company because of the war, the company tried to grow cane in Arizona. Unfortunately this did not meet with success. Hence the idea of plastic reeds was born.

Although originally the music industry scoffed at the idea of plastic reeds replacing fine, French cane, Benny Goodman—who had been using and endorsing Maccaferri cane reeds—stepped up and praised the new invention. Soon many big band stars used and endorsed the Maccaferri plastic reeds.

According to The Plastics Academy Hall of Fame, after Mario Maccaferri’s success with the plastic reed, he went on to invent the injection molded clothespin. The company he founded after the success of the clothespin, Mastro Industries, Inc, then went on to make things like injection molded wall tiles, plastic ukuleles (In a 9 year period between 1949 – 1958 they made 9 million of them!) and other plastic instruments such as: guitars, banjos, drums, trumpets, and saxophones.

In the 1960s Mario was involved with the design of the 8 track tape cartridge, while 1990 saw the debut of his first, full-size, professional quality violin at Carnegie Hall.

Maccaferri’s strong interest in music makes sense, given that he started out as a professional guitarist.

Born in Cento, Italy, Maccaferri was trained as a classical guitarist and in 1926 became a professor at the Conservatory of Music in Sienna. His concert career continued until he sustained a hand injury in 1932. In the meantime, he had developed a second career designing and manufacturing musical instruments.

Source: The Plastics Academy Hall of Fame

Remember that plastic Maccaferri reed that was the catalyst for this article? Well it is available on eBay right now. The seller describes the reed like this:

I’m thinning out my herd of mouthpieces and accessories and getting rid of some nice pieces that I no longer am using.

Here is an item I got from the estate of an old big band tenor sax player in Michigan. He took meticulous care of his sax and accessories. This reed appears to be in unused, or nearly unused condition.

The Miracle plastic reed was developed by the famous Mario Maccaferri in the 1940’s in response to o serious shortage of cane and similar materials. He provided reeds to Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Dorsey, and many others. There was something special about the Miracle reed which no other maker of plastic reeds seemed able to emulate. I’ve run across these reeds from time to time, but never with the original packaging, and never in such pristine condition. i mostly play alto sax, so it’s kind of silly for me to hang onto this.

The machines used in the production of the reeds were specially adjusted by Mario and nobody but him knew how to finesse them. When he passed on, this special knowledge was lost.

Source: eatonrapidsjunkbarn

There’s really no way of knowing how old this reed is. The company certainly no longer produces plastic reeds. Today, they are back in the business of cane reeds. There is also nothing written on any of the their history pages that indicates when the company ceased production of these innovative plastic reeds.

It is however, safe to say that this reed is definitely a collector’s piece, and worthy of good home. If you would like to be the one to provide it that good home, you have just a couple of days to get your bid in.

The auction for this Maccaferri plastic reed ends on July 11. Bids are to start at $25.00. At the time of writing there were no bids yet on this interesting piece of American plastic history.