Can someone help me identify this Buffet Oboe?

Bobbyb

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I need help identifying this instrument. I'm posting this in general because I would hope someone in the community that isn't an oboe player might be familiar with this brand. [/FONT]

It appears to be a Buffet Crampon Carl Fischer New York LP Oboe. Made in France. All wood.

Heres a gallery I made on imgur. This was taken on a bad camera and the flourecent lights in my office make it slightly yellow, but in person it doesn't have that yellow hue.
http://imgur.com/a/AY4oD

I've been told it's silver plated and would shine up real nicely and one repair shop guy thought it was from 1929 but he wasn't sure exactly and recommended I post online and see if anyone would know better than he would. He also said because of the several options of restoration of pads and cork that I should find the buyer first so they can choose how they want it set up.

The wood is completely intact and everything is functional. The pads and cork need to be replaced. It appears to be in the original box with the original reed case and cleaning tool.

My question is What model is this? The oldest serial I can find is 0864(1924) and this is 0869. One guy told me that Buffet lost a lot of their records in WWII. I'm pretty sure this sat in the box for over 60-70 years in an attic that had air conditioning so I think this is a pretty rare find.

What do you think the value of something like this would be and would you restore it or sell it as is (maybe just have the silver polished and take better pictures)?
 
* The Buffet oboe serial number chart I have starts with 10 in 1885 and ends with 0843 in 1923, so saying your oboe is from 1924/5 works fine for me.
* Buffet had at least one fire that destroyed records and it was around 1940.
* "Carl Fischer" is the company Buffet used for exporting instruments and they used CF for a long time.
* "LP" stands for "Low Pitch," which is the modern tuning standard of A=44hz.
* I can agree with silver plate, but that's because I can't see it in person. It looks more like nickel plate to me. You're also missing a lot of it, but silver tarnishes purplish, brownish, or blackish. Nickel tarnishes dull. If you still can't tell, you can go by what a repairman says or a jeweler. The reason you'd want to find out is more because you shouldn't polish silver plate with nickel plate polish or vice-versa -- and you want to use non-tarnishing, non-abrasive polish. And get your shots up to date. They're called "needle springs" for an obvious reason.
* Buffet really didn't have "models" of anything for a long time. You would have, say, "Buffet oboe," a selection of materials the horn would be made out of, and how many keys and/or which fingering system you'd like. Looking at my notes on Buffet saxophones, their first real saxophone model name came in 1950 with the Dynaction. On clarinet, from Steve Sklar's website, the first clarinet model name appeared in 1955 for the R13 -- and "R13" was probably just a catalog number that Buffet eventually adopted as a "real" model name.

When I come across a manufacturer that doesn't bother using model names and I don't have specific catalog numbers, I generally go with feature-set and call each feature-set something descriptive so I can tell the horns apart.

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There's a guy named Peter Hurd at this link. When I was doing research on Sarrusophones -- those are essentially double-reed versions of a saxophone -- his name kept popping up, so I'd assume that he'd be able to answer any specific questions and give you a better idea on value. Doing a brief Google, I wasn't able to find any Buffet oboes as old as the 1920s.

The International Double-Reed Society (IDRS) also had a bunch of info I've used over the years. They have a couple forums and probably can give you a lot of info.

Of course, there might be someone else here that has some info.
 
BTW, looking closer at your pics, I think your serial number might be "6869." Possibly even "16869," depending on whether that thing that looks like a "1" is a 1 or is just a bit of wood that's been gouged. You might want to take a closer look with a magnifying glass.
 
I took it to a local woodwind repair shop after being recommended by two music stores.

He was an older gentleman that plays the oboe. He said he thinks it's nickel plated and it's a ring style which he says isn't that popular in america. He thought someone might buy this for a collection, but he said it's definitely restorable and should have a unique sound (he wasn't sure if it would be good or bad, but it would be different). He tested the screws and none were frozen or rusted.

He's the top woodwind guy in Maryland that does this and he said he would restore it to perfect for 600-700 because of the ring style it doesn't have a lot of pads. He said the wood is in great shape and has no cracks and this is the original box and reed case with it. He told me to leave it as is and try to sell it to a collector though, but if they were local and they wanted to restore it send them his way.

@pete, the thing that looks like a 1 is just part of the wood grain. if you follow it up like an cm theres another identical mark. He said he definitely thinks this was late 20s just because of the ring style and he said carl fischer had imported a lot of them before WWII

@SOTSDO, I'll get some shots tonight and post them and maybe you can give me more information on this.
 
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