Merry-go-round...
So there was this close race between two competitors for my surplus R.S. Symphonie (which had a happy ending for either involved party it seems).
Well, so I sold mine to a nice gentleman in a small European country, player in a municipal wind band and (presumably) other orchestras as well. He told me that they had equipped the whole section with Symphonies but these instruments were stolen when the band's storage room was broken into years ago.
I packed and shipped the instrument, everything arrived in good working order. Everything except one barrel which he reported as having an ever so tiny crack. I can't tell why I didn't spot it, either I attributed it to a wood irregularity, or it had expanded during the trip, or I really need glasses. Anyhow, he said no problem, he'd have a go at it with a friend, Symphonie owner as well, to find out which one the instrument would need to play in tune.
Today I got a mail where he told me that last week he'd found an old business card from a Marigaux rep from the 2000-something Musikmesse. He rang him up and not only was he still in business, the also offered to look into finding a replacement barrel from their spare parts chest, and that he should visit them in Paris to have the instrument gone over (apparently one note is a bit flat so they'd rebore it, what do I know). Seems that after-sales treatment is better in some company than it is in others. Wow.
Anyhow, during that conversation the theft from back then was mentioned, and Mr. Marigaux said oh, they knew where the stolen clarinets were (in some evidence vault in South America where they were confiscated in some handling stolen goods case) but they had lost the address of the original owners so they couldn't contact them, until that very day.
So, that cracked barrel not only revived the contact with the company, it also helped finding some instruments stolen years ago.
If I had sold that instrument to the other player, maybe none of this would have happened, except from me giving a rebate on the cracked barrel or offering to have it repaired (but it, being the shorter one of the two, wouldn't be used in a non-442Hz country anyway).
Anyhow, I asked for some information for my web page, who knows, maybe I'm getting an old catalog or some other interesting stuff.