According to an email sent to Ed Svoboda, the founder of The Woodwind Forum, Rico is planning on reintroducing their Metalite mouthpieces in the next 12 months. I know this should make many in the sax playing world quite happy.
The Metalite and Graftonite mouthpieces were designed for Rico by legendary mouthpiece designer Arnold Brilhart. For some reason, that only makes sense to Rico (and perhaps not even to them), they stopped manufacturing the Metalite pieces, but continued on with their Graftonite production. Over time, the Metalite pieces, especially those for baritone, have become quite popular.
Despite their very inexpensive original price (<$20 on all models), the baritone versions especially, have been commanding prices upwards of $100 on eBay over the past few years.
I hope that when they do reintroduce the Metalite mouthpieces, that Rico doesn’t jack the prices up, and keeps them in line with the current Graftonite prices. Woodwind & Brasswind for example, is selling the for baritone version $18.75.
If you’d like to read more about the Rico Royal Metalite & Graftonite mouthpieces, check out the rest of the articles in this series. You can find the article list in the navigation bar on the right. It is listed under the Series: Rico Mouthpieces.
