| Brilhart mouthpieces with serial numbers |
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updated 6. June 2022 Brilhart put serial numbers on his mouthpieces from the start in 1939, claiming that it made possible for a customer to get an exact replica of his mouthpiece should it be lost. In reality, it probably was to be able to follow the popularity of the individual models, as witnessed by the use of several parallel lines of serial numbers in the Great Neck and Mineola (Large Font/AT) period. It seems that there were individual serial number lines for Hard Rubber, Ebolin, Tonalin, Tonalite, and within these, for tenor and alto. The clarinet pieces were placed with the tenors. I am in doubt about baritone and bass clarinet. By 1946 the company had moved to Mineola, N.Y. where they were until 1951. The mouthpieces made there still have the "Large/AT" font, but no Great Neck, N.Y. stamp on the shank. In 1951 the company had moved to Huntington, N.Y. and in January, Brilhart started production of the Personalines, changed the font for the serial numbers from "Large/AT" to "Small/Arial" and at the same time started all over with the serials. At this time the "ligature line", which shows the proper placement of the ligature, disappeared. (Thanks to Toshio Yashiro, Tokyo for bringing this to my attention). The separate serial number lines were abandoned. (The font used in Great Neck and Mineola resembles the American Typewriter font which is why I dubbed this AT. The numerals look like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. The font I call Arial and Theo Wanne calls Small Font resembles Arial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 (or Courier 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ) (See "How Old is my Brilhart") In 1954 Brilhart Plastics Corporation moved to Carlsbad, California, and continued the "Small / Arial" serial numbers. On the boxes, the serial number now is written in hand, while it was printed while they were in New York, including Huntington. Thus, the change from printed to handwritten comes after the change to "Small / arial" font. From November 1966, after Selmer took over the company, the serial number system was simply the date of production, e.g. 16 April 1967 was 041667. By end of July, 1967 (My latest observed serial is 073167) they ceased to use serial numbers except for the Level-Air metal mouthpieces. Below is a picture of Brilhart Plastics Corporation in Mineola and a map showing Great Neck, Mineola and Hungtington on Long island, New York |
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