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Vintage Noblet clarinet: What do I have here?

Just trying to get an idea of the vintage of this, and possible value. My wife's parents bought it at a garage sale when she was a kid. I don't think anything has been done to it. It just sat in closet all this time. We thought our kid might play it, but that's not happening.

Here's what I know about it:
It's old
It's wood
It has the Noblet Paris logo with the "D"
Serial number is 3848D
One section has two small cracks--about 1"--that were repaired with what appears to be epoxy. These cracks are on opposite edges of the upper section, where it meets the barrel.
The case is in good shape.





Thanks for your help!
 
Chances are good that it's a Noblet Model 40. The serial number fits.

The absolute maximum sold on eBay was $430. Most were in the $150-$250 range. Considering a crack generally means "unplayable," it'll be hard to get any cash out of it.

It's possible, if you have a mouthpiece, that it's worth more than the horn.
 
it's a mess. That one crack is big, the other was repaired poorly.


I agree it would be hard to get any cash out of it. I could see it failing to get $40 on ebay, even with modest shipping. As an investment, it's worthless. Like Gandalf says, it would take hundreds to get in playing condition and in my opinion would probably sell at less than a hundred dollars as repaired cracks hold a stigma in the marketplace.


I like Noblet clarinets and I have a total of three. They are well respected yet not valued highly and are common suggestion given to doublers looking for a decent, cheap instrument. It seems like there are far more up for sale than are actually in players hands.
 
Ok. I think they gave $5 for it at the garage sale. Apparently, the people said they didn't know there was even an instrument in the case. So no big loss. I thought it might be a Stradivarius model valued at a couple million, but whatever. :emoji_smile:

Any idea on the year?
 
Provided I'm reading it right, clarinetperfection.com (run by one of our staff!) says that these horns are difficult to date, but between 1940s to 1962. (See this link and this link.)

Last I heard, Leblanc, the company that Noblet is a part of, has gone back to saying, "We will not give you any horn information!"

From doing about 5 minutes of Googling, the most expensive Bb soprano (i.e. the horn you posted) you can buy, currently, is about $11,500 US. The most expensive clarinet sold at auction was Benny Goodman's, which fetched about $25,000. (IIRC, he played Selmers. I don't remember if the last ones he played were Centered Tone or something else.) However, I would think that if you could find a horn like the CJ Sax ivory horn, you might be able to surpass $25K. I hear that there were some inlaid with precious jewels ...
 
I would have bought it for $5. I think I have an Albert System Clarinet in a bin somewhere I paid that much for.
 
Last I heard, Leblanc, the company that Noblet is a part of, has gone back to saying, "We will not give you any horn information!"
Well they can't really give serial numbers before 1964 (I think) as the chart no longer exists. For anything else I can blame Conn-Selmer.
 
Well they can't really give serial numbers before 1964 (I think) as the chart no longer exists. For anything else I can blame Conn-Selmer.
They're a little more ... snooty ... about it. Kinda, "You're terribly inconveniencing me by even asking!"
 
...
One section has two small cracks--about 1"--that were repaired with what appears to be epoxy.
...

Sorry, but they count as large cracks IMO and they are very badly repaired making them difficult to repair properly. If it has cracked that badly the bore is probably warped and it will never play properly in tune again.
 
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