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Trumpetingbynurture
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 Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:12 am Post subject: CG Trumpets |
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There's quite a few different models out there that are supposed to be replicas of CG trumpet designs.
There's the original Benge & Selmer horns, but there is also:
Burbank 6X-CG
Marcinkiewicz CG-1 & CG-2
Kanstul 1070
Are there any others?
And has anyone played all of these? How do they compare?
(I'm looking at you, John Mohan) |
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Bogey Factory
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 5:18 am Post subject: |
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Eclipse has a new model designed with the help of Larry Meregillano that is inspired by the CG Horns. It isn't a direct copy though.
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Liberty Lips
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 12:23 pm Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| Trumpetingbynurture wrote: | There's quite a few different models out there that are supposed to be replicas of CG trumpet designs.
There's the original Benge & Selmer horns, but there is also:
Burbank 6X-CG
Marcinkiewicz CG-1 & CG-2
Kanstul 1070
Are there any others?
And has anyone played all of these? How do they compare?
(I'm looking at you, John Mohan) |
The Benge CG was the original horn, with a Besson Meha leadpipe, .468" bore and a restriction as the bell leaves the valve cluster down to .464". After Benge left Anaheim, Claude commissioned Selmer to make a very similar horn, but with a slightly larger bore of .470", and a bell restriction down to .464". The Burbank CG was the same horn, with a bore of .470" and a .464" bell restriction, although the ferrules and stylings were closer to the Benge than the Selmer. Although some claim that the Kanstul 1070 was the same horn, as it has a Besson Meha leadpipe and a bore of .470", there is no restriction as the bell leaves the valve cluster.
I have an old Besson Meha, and it does not have a bell restriction, in spite of Claude Gordon's claims that it did. Although it's possible that some of the Mehas were constructed in that manner, the fact that mine was not indicates to me that it was not a normal feature of that instrument. I can assure you that the CG Benge, the old Besson Meha, and the Kanstul 1070 (in the case of my instrument, the Besson/Kanstul Meha) do NOT play the same.
I'm not familiar with the Marcinkiewicz trumpets. |
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John Mohan
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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Regarding the decreased bell tube diameter on the CG horns, please note that Claude Gordon never claimed his Meha had a bell tube restriction. It was his personal Meha's leadpipe that was copied and used on the CG Benge, not its bell tube. How the bell tube restriction came to be is described down below.
Basically, the CG Benge was a Benge 6X made with three modifications:
1) The Leadpipe was a copy of the one on his prized Pre-WWII French Besson Meha .470" Trumpet.
2) The Bell Tube was built with a slightly smaller diameter (.464" instead of .468").
3) The Bell was buffed down to be very light and thin to make the horn play brighter (or with more "sizzle" as the old timers used to call it). When Zig Kanstul took over as manager of Benge and learned that many bells were being ruined and discarded when over-buffed during the process, he rather sensibly suggested they simply order thinner gauge brass sheets for the bells. This created consistency and reduced losses.
The Bell Tube restriction came into being because it was discovered that one of the Benge 6X mandrels actually had a .464" bell tube - and Al Porcino's 6X was one of them. When he sent it back to Benge for an unrelated Bell repair, the technician discovered that the horn's bell tube was smaller than Spec and dutifully "corrected" it by running a .468" ball through it. When Al got his horn back, he was dismayed to find it didn't play as well, and asked, "What have you done with my horn? You ruined it!" Bob Reeves said it was later discovered that one of the mandrels for the 6X horns had a .464" end instead of the spec .468". Several of Claude's students related this situation to him and he found he liked the horns with the restriction so he specified it for the CG Benge. This info appears on the Trumpet Gearhead page:
https://www.everythingtrumpet.com/gearhead/BengeCGdetails.html
Before the CG Benge was fully developed Claude had a Burbank Benge 6X built with the bell tube made to be just .464" for his student Lowell Stevenson (the creator of FoKus Mouthpieces and a member of this forum). I bought this horn from Lowell, and in my opinion, selling it to me was the most boneheaded thing he's ever done because it is the best horn I've ever played (it has been my main horn since I bought it from him in 2000).  It has two of the three characteristics of the CG Benge, the buffed down bell and the bell tube restriction, but has a stock 6X leadpipe with the smaller (standard size) .345" venturi in the leadpipe (the CG Benge has a larger .358" venturi). As such, my Burbank Benge 6X feels a lot like a CG Benge but plays slightly less bright. Here's the original sales receipt for this particular Burbank Benge 6X:
https://i.postimg.cc/SKSvKXqj/Burbank-Benge-Bill-of-Sale.jpg
Sorry this post is so long!
I'll try to be brief here describing the differences between the various CG or CG-type horns.
As already posted, the Kanstul 1070 doesn't have the Bell Tube restriction (but does have a CG style leadpipe). I have read that it is more a copy of a Besson Meha than of a Benge 6X (though the 6X is also a near copy of a Meha, so go figure…). I've never played one so that's about all I can say about it.
The CG Benge was Claude's first design. Being a modification of an existing horn (the Benge 6X .468" Large Bore) and not having the full .470" bore his Meha had, the CG Benge was a compromise. Benge wouldn't spend the money retooling to make a .470" horn (ironically, they went ahead and created the 7X with a .470" bore later on, but it was not a CG type horn).
Since he couldn’t get Benge to do a .470” bore CG-type trumpet, Claude went to Selmer. The CG Selmer was Claude's second and final design and in his opinion the better of the two horns. It held no compromises and was built exactly as he designed it, complete with the full .470" bore size. It was also made by hand at the Bach factory instead of being partially assembled on an assembly line as Bach Strads are. Unfortunately, this is the main reason it is no longer made. It was priced the same as the standard Bach Strad but cost much more to make, leaving little to no net profit for the factory. This was my preferred horn from 1985 when I bought me first one, until I procured Lowell's one-of-a-kind Burbank Benge. And I still pull it out when I want an even brighter horn than my Burbank Benge. I do also love the CG Benge - I actually own two Benge CG's, two Selmer CG's, and my Burbank Benge - I just haven't figured out a way to play all five of them all at the same time.
Around 2004 or 2005 Claude's widow Patricia Gordon approached Joe Marcinkiewicz, and his company then used some of the original mandrels to create near copies of both the CG Selmer and CG Benge models. There were minor differences in trim and the second valve slide faced the wrong way (backward like a Bach!), but these horns play very true to their respective originals. I was part of the team that play-tested the prototypes and if I could have afforded them, I would have bought both (and then would have to eventually figure out a way to play seven trumpets at the same time).
Most recently, a Claude Gordon clone trumpet was added to the Burbank line of trumpets, the 6XCG (which was the actual model designation of the early CG Benge trumpets). I've never played one, but Steve Dillard (The Horntrader) speaks highly of it, and one of my students purchased one and sounds great on it. I've never played his as he is a Skype student from Germany.
The interesting thing about the Burbank 6XCG is it stays true to the Benge / Meha design cues, but unlike the Benge CG, it does have the full .470" bore size Claude always wanted. As such, it appears to be a horn that looks and feels like a Benge CG trumpet (with the more petite Benge valve cluster) but has the design of the CG Selmer. In essence, it is exactly what Claude wanted when he first went to Benge. I think I'd love it, but I fear I'll never be able to buy one now that Kanstul seems to have gone to the ages. But if I do find and buy one, then I'll have to figure out how to play 8 trumpets at the same time (if I only buy a silver or gold plated one and not both – otherwise it’d be nine).
Cheers,
John Mohan |
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theslawdawg
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 2:14 pm Post subject: |
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John,
Thanks for the great write up and education.
You need to switch your mindset and say...I ONLY have seven horns.
All the best...Jr
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Trumpetingbynurture
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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| John Mohan wrote: |
Cheers,
John Mohan |
Thanks John!
Although you forgot to mention how the Marcink trumpets fit into all of this. I know you wrote a review of them a number of years ago.
Also, how I would love to try all of these horns!
I love my Kanstul 1070. The ease and playability of it is unlike anything else I've tried. It just *feels* good to play. I don't know how else to describe it. But I would dearly love to try the Maricnk CG or Burbank 6XCG, too! |
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LittleRusty
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Trumpetingbynurture wrote: | | John Mohan wrote: |
Cheers,
John Mohan |
Thanks John!
Although you forgot to mention how the Marcink trumpets fit into all of this. I know you wrote a review of them a number of years ago.
Also, how I would love to try all of these horns!
I love my Kanstul 1070. The ease and playability of it is unlike anything else I've tried. It just *feels* good to play. I don't know how else to describe it. But I would dearly love to try the Maricnk CG or Burbank 6XCG, too! |
If you mean Marcinkiewicz, John did have this paragraph in his reply.
| John Mohan wrote: | | Around 2004 or 2005 Claude's widow Patricia Gordon approached Joe Marcinkiewicz, and his company then used some of the original mandrels to create near copies of both the CG Selmer and CG Benge models. There were minor differences in trim and the second valve slide faced the wrong way (backward like a Bach!), but these horns play very true to their respective originals. I was part of the team that play-tested the prototypes and if I could have afforded them, I would have bought both (and then would have to eventually figure out a way to play seven trumpets at the same time).
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Liberty Lips
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:14 pm Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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When UMI closed the Anaheim plant and moved operations to Eastlake, Ohio, they dropped a number of Benge models, including the CG. Claude went to Zig to continue it as a Kanstul horn, as Zig had just secured the Besson contract and was starting his own factory. The deal was never made, however, because the start-up did not have the ability to pay the royalty to Claude that he was receiving from Benge, and that’s why he went to Selmer.
There was another significant difference between the Benge and Selmer CG’s (and probably the Marcinkiewicz as well), which was the long-throw valve set that was a feature of all Benge trumpets. The long-throw allowed the valve ports to have less pronounced “dimples”, which reduced resistance. Benge trumpets had a distinct free-blowing feel because of this, but it was also the reason that the fifth partial on Benge trumpets played noticeably flat. The Selmers were built with their stock large bore valve set, which undoubtedly gave the horn a different blow. I don’t know if the Burbank trumpets had valves with a long-throw or not, but I do know that the-long throw and the flat fifth partial was one of the “corrections” that Zig made when de designed his version of the Benge 3x and 3x+, which became the Kanstul Chicago Series 1000 and 1001. |
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Trumpetingbynurture
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| Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 1:20 am Post subject: |
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| LittleRusty wrote: | | Trumpetingbynurture wrote: | | John Mohan wrote: |
Cheers,
John Mohan |
Thanks John!
Although you forgot to mention how the Marcink trumpets fit into all of this. I know you wrote a review of them a number of years ago.
Also, how I would love to try all of these horns!
I love my Kanstul 1070. The ease and playability of it is unlike anything else I've tried. It just *feels* good to play. I don't know how else to describe it. But I would dearly love to try the Maricnk CG or Burbank 6XCG, too! |
If you mean Marcinkiewicz, John did have this paragraph in his reply.
| John Mohan wrote: | | Around 2004 or 2005 Claude's widow Patricia Gordon approached Joe Marcinkiewicz, and his company then used some of the original mandrels to create near copies of both the CG Selmer and CG Benge models. There were minor differences in trim and the second valve slide faced the wrong way (backward like a Bach!), but these horns play very true to their respective originals. I was part of the team that play-tested the prototypes and if I could have afforded them, I would have bought both (and then would have to eventually figure out a way to play seven trumpets at the same time).
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Looks like I skipped that paragraph! |
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shofarguy
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| Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 3:59 am Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| Liberty Lips wrote: | When UMI closed the Anaheim plant and moved operations to Eastlake, Ohio, they dropped a number of Benge models, including the CG. Claude went to Zig to continue it as a Kanstul horn, as Zig had just secured the Besson contract and was starting his own factory. The deal was never made, however, because the start-up did not have the ability to pay the royalty to Claude that he was receiving from Benge, and that’s why he went to Selmer.
There was another significant difference between the Benge and Selmer CG’s (and probably the Marcinkiewicz as well), which was the long-throw valve set that was a feature of all Benge trumpets. The long-throw allowed the valve ports to have less pronounced “dimples”, which reduced resistance. Benge trumpets had a distinct free-blowing feel because of this, but it was also the reason that the fifth partial on Benge trumpets played noticeably flat. The Selmers were built with their stock large bore valve set, which undoubtedly gave the horn a different blow. I don’t know if the Burbank trumpets had valves with a long-throw or not, but I do know that the-long throw and the flat fifth partial was one of the “corrections” that Zig made when de designed his version of the Benge 3x and 3x+, which became the Kanstul Chicago Series 1000 and 1001. |
You are right about the Selmer having very different valve design, compared to the Benge. The Selmer, as I recall, was a quite short stroke design and had the rounded transfer port tubes we know from Bach trumpets. The transfer port tubes on Benge/Besson trumpets are straight pieces. This is the largest difference in the design and precipitates a number of things, including length of stroke and those dimples in the piston port tubes. The radial position of the transfer tubes is the difference. The rounded tubes allow those ports to move further into the blank space on the left hand side of the piston. This causes less conflict in the port tubes, and also allows the stroke to be shorter.
Zig once told me of the two styles of Benge valves. The normal set served both the ML and L models. A second design, the MLP valves, came about after Elden's move to Burbank. These new valves have less dimpling than the original Benge design, because Elden extended the distance between the vertical pairs of valve tubes in each piston. This gives more room inside the piston for the port tubing. There is very little squish area, but the stroke grew about 1/8". Compared to the Selmer, the MLP valve stroke is long enough to get you into the next town! The CG Benge had the shorter stroke valve design, but it is still longer than the Selmer.
The Burbank 6XCG has Kanstul's homogenized and hybridized version of the Benge valves. All three bore sizes are made from the same design, but Kanstul chose a slightly larger bore center spacing for the valve ports, compared to the standard Benge. They are not nearly as wide as the Benge MLP valves, though. The result is a set of valves that look like Benge valves, have smaller port dimpling than the originals and retain a very workable, relatively short stroke.
Lastly, I once asked Zig what it was that made the flat 4th partial in the Benge horns. He said something like, "It's somewhere in the lead pipe down near the tuning slide end. As the mandrels got worn, the pipes got worse and horns with those pipes played out of tune. We had to replace mandrels periodically."
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Bogey Factory
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| Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 4:07 am Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| Liberty Lips wrote: | When UMI closed the Anaheim plant and moved operations to Eastlake, Ohio, they dropped a number of Benge models, including the CG. Claude went to Zig to continue it as a Kanstul horn, as Zig had just secured the Besson contract and was starting his own factory. The deal was never made, however, because the start-up did not have the ability to pay the royalty to Claude that he was receiving from Benge, and that’s why he went to Selmer.
There was another significant difference between the Benge and Selmer CG’s (and probably the Marcinkiewicz as well), which was the long-throw valve set that was a feature of all Benge trumpets. The long-throw allowed the valve ports to have less pronounced “dimples”, which reduced resistance. Benge trumpets had a distinct free-blowing feel because of this, but it was also the reason that the fifth partial on Benge trumpets played noticeably flat. The Selmers were built with their stock large bore valve set, which undoubtedly gave the horn a different blow. I don’t know if the Burbank trumpets had valves with a long-throw or not, but I do know that the-long throw and the flat fifth partial was one of the “corrections” that Zig made when de designed his version of the Benge 3x and 3x+, which became the Kanstul Chicago Series 1000 and 1001. |
Some CG Benge USA models were made in Eastlake, OH. I had one and so did my very first trumpet teacher.
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Liberty Lips
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| Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 7:59 am Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| Bogey Factory wrote: | | Some CG Benge USA models were made in Eastlake, OH. I had one and so did my very first trumpet teacher. |
UMI had partially finished inventory and parts from Anaheim that they completed into finished inventory and sold them until that inventory was depleted. There weren't very many CG Benge USA horns sold, and once they were shipped they dropped the model completely. |
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yourbrass
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| Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 5:16 pm Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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I have a few small corrections, based on my experience in working on these instruments, and the many conversations I have had with my colleague Larry Souza and with Claude Gordon.
"The Benge CG was the original horn, with a Besson Meha leadpipe, .468" bore and a restriction as the bell leaves the valve cluster down to .464"."
The leadpipe for the CG Benge was a stock pipe they used on most of their models with the large end flaired to .468". The Benge foreman in charge of design in the 70's simply wouldn't copy Claude's Meha leadpipe. That was one of the things that always bothered Claude.
"After Benge left Anaheim, Claude commissioned Selmer to make a very similar horn, but with a slightly larger bore of .470", and a bell restriction down to .464"."
Other than the two models being Bb trumpets, there are very few similarities. The Benge was all brass,the Selmer had a nickel leadpipe which much larger then the Benge. I believe the choke on the bell was .466." It may have been that Claude thought the .004" difference between bore and bell was the right relationship. The Selmer bell is larger then the Benge. The ports in the Selmer valves are much larger than the Benge.
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"Compared to the Selmer, the MLP valve stroke is long enough to get you into the next town! The CG Benge had the shorter stroke valve design, but it is still longer than the Selmer"
The CG Benge valves had the longest stroke, or travel, that Benge ever made. The MLP and CG valve stems are the same.
It just shows you that completely different design ideas can work just as well.
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Liberty Lips
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| Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 8:19 pm Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| yourbrass wrote: | | The leadpipe for the CG Benge was a stock pipe they used on most of their models with the large end flaired to .468". The Benge foreman in charge of design in the 70's simply wouldn't copy Claude's Meha leadpipe. That was one of the things that always bothered Claude. |
It is possible that the first renditions of the CG Benge utilized a 6x leadpipe, but I can assure you that by 1975 the horn had the Besson Meha leadpipe that Zig recreated from Claude’s pre-war Meha. Taking his sweet time about it does not equate to a refusal to copy it, and that recreated leadpipe certainly came in handy when Zig presented his F. Besson prototypes to Boosey and Hawkes just under a decade later.
The bell on the CG Benge was a thin-guage 6x bell, which certainly differed from the Selmer CG bell, and also from the Kanstul/Besson Meha bell that Zig designed as his version of the pre-war Meha bell. As was stated earlier, the Kanstul/Besson Meha was later rebadged as the Chicago 1070.
By the way, Zig’s decision to make the CG bell from a thinner guage of brass from the get-go rather than waste time and money buffing bells down to a thin guage seems like a no-brainer to me rather than some kind of a stroke of manufacturing genius. |
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OldSchoolEuph
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| Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 2:44 am Post subject: |
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By the time Zig came to Benge (1972?) he already had extensive experience replicating a variety of Besson pipes from originals - and experience in the variation between samples. He had expended considerable energy also creating the "corrected" versions of common Besson pipes ("2" as the 3rd digit of the Olds Custom leadpipe code), and it is logical that he would have been an advocate of that approach rather than copying the pipe on one specific horn precisely. I can see how that might have led to some contention.
Buffing away thickness from a bell is a costly, and challenging, method, but the results could be significantly different from just using thinner stock. Buffing would allow for a precise control of thickness that in forming from a thin sheet, is purely the result of geometry as it is stretched. The buffed bell could be more consistent if desired, or more varied.
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Liberty Lips
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| Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 6:36 am Post subject: |
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| OldSchoolEuph wrote: | | By the time Zig came to Benge (1972?) he already had extensive experience replicating a variety of Besson pipes from originals - and experience in the variation between samples. He had expended considerable energy also creating the "corrected" versions of common Besson pipes ("2" as the 3rd digit of the Olds Custom leadpipe code), and it is logical that he would have been an advocate of that approach rather than copying the pipe on one specific horn precisely. I can see how that might have led to some contention. |
That leads to a question that might be a bit off-topic, but could be related: since Zig had considerable experience researching the characteristics of F. Besson trumpets by the time he left Benge, why did he choose to design "new" Besson trumpets for Boosey and Hawkes that deviated significantly from the original Besson designs? The most significant deviation was in the wrap of the trumpets; had Zig simply used the same wrap that he used for Benge trumpets, the wrap would have been only slightly taller than the originals Bessons rather than the very tall wrap he ultimately chose to utilize. I could speculate and suggest that Zig wanted to make a horn that was more modern and much more of an all-around trumpet than the originals were, and if that was the case I would argue that he succeeded. However, if he was truly attempting to re-create the old Bessons, somehow he was led astray.
| OldSchoolEuph wrote: | | Buffing away thickness from a bell is a costly, and challenging, method, but the results could be significantly different from just using thinner stock. Buffing would allow for a precise control of thickness that in forming from a thin sheet, is purely the result of geometry as it is stretched. The buffed bell could be more consistent if desired, or more varied. |
I think you're giving a lot of credit to the workers in the buffing department. You say that the buffed bell could be more consistent, or varied if desired, but in practice attempting either would be haphazard at best. The buffer would have to stop the buffing process regularly to check the thickness with calipers, and if the bell became too thin (which apparently happened regularly according to John Mohan's testimonial) the whole thing would go into the scrap pile. I don't see how buffing to achieve a desired thickness could ever be a precise operation. And how is forming a bell from a thin sheet geometric but buffing it isn't? It's all geometry, just not the kind that results from formulaic calculations. |
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yourbrass
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| Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:19 pm Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| Liberty Lips wrote: | | yourbrass wrote: | | The leadpipe for the CG Benge was a stock pipe they used on most of their models with the large end flaired to .468". The Benge foreman in charge of design in the 70's simply wouldn't copy Claude's Meha leadpipe. That was one of the things that always bothered Claude. |
It is possible that the first renditions of the CG Benge utilized a 6x leadpipe, but I can assure you that by 1975 the horn had the Besson Meha leadpipe that Zig recreated from Claude’s pre-war Meha.
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Not according to all the Benge pipes I have measured. They are a slightly flaired stock Benge pipe. The Selmer pipe is a copy of Claude's pipe, at least according to Claude.
The CG Selmer was Claude's design far more than the Benge. Not to say there's anything wrong with a CG Benge, for sure.
Besson Mehas are all over the map in terms of their dimensions. A friend's Meha, which is one of the best trumpets I've ever played, has a medium bore leadpipe, and a .478" bore bell! No choke on that one.
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quikv6
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| Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 6:27 pm Post subject: Bessons |
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In regard to Bessons, I believe LibertyLips is referring specifically to the narrow wrap of the French made F.Bessons. Yes, it is true that dimensions/bores/bells varied considerably, but the wrap was always narrow throughout the various model names. (Grands Prix, Meha, Fabrication).
Kanstul made Bessons (excluding the Stamm model, which were a narrower wrap) were a wider wrap, similar to a Bach.
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Liberty Lips
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 1:10 am Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| yourbrass wrote: | Not according to all the Benge pipes I have measured. They are a slightly flaired stock Benge pipe. The Selmer pipe is a copy of Claude's pipe, at least according to Claude.
The CG Selmer was Claude's design far more than the Benge. Not to say there's anything wrong with a CG Benge, for sure. |
It's true that I haven't personally measured any leadpipes, and that it seems we are all depending on two narrators who could, at times, be unreliable - Claude Gordon and Zig Kanstul. Claude was known to hype his horns - he claimed that the CG Benge was exactly what he wanted when the Benges were in production, then when the Selmers were in production suddenly that was the design and bore size he had really wanted all along. Hyping your horns isn't dishonesty, it's salesmanship. Zig, on the other hand, often told some people certain things, then contradicted himself with others, which I attribute to a discerning individual who often changed his own perspective while developing different ideas, while at many times being reluctant to share what he considered to be proprietary information. Claude indeed told me (as far as my own recollection of a 45 year old conversation can be relied upon) that his pre-war Meha had a bell choke. If it did, it may well have been a one-off or a mistake, as the variability of F. Besson trumpets is well documented, and recreating a moving target is indeed an impossibility. He also told me that the CG Benge at that time had the same leadpipe as his pre-war Besson, which one could interpret either as a leadpipe recreated from his own Meha, or a leadpipe that he accepted as reasonably identical to it.
I think that it would be worth investigating which CG Benges John Coppola has taken measurements of. I know that the first renditions of the CG Benge had 6x leadpipes, and I remain certain that by serial number 16,000 or even earlier the leadpipes on CG Benges were recreations of the F. Besson Meha leadpipe, whether that leadpipe was copied from Claude’s own Meha or if it was a Meha leadpipe that Zig had developed while he was at Olds. It’s also possible that after Zig left Benge around 1980 (serial number 35,000 or so) the new management got sloppy with specifications and went back to stock leadpipes on the CG horns (I have heard rumors about similar situations with the UMI Benges).
I’m also pretty certain (not 100% certain) that the design elements that Claude was especially interested in were a large bore (either .468" or 470", although I don’t think he was worried about the .002" difference between those specs), the F. Besson Meha reproduction leadpipe, the .464" or .466" choke as the bell leaves the valve cluster, and the thin gauge of the bell material. Although he did mention to me that the "flat" knuckles between the valves was a very important feature, I surmise that he wasn’t especially worried about that spec either since the Selmer CG featured rounded knuckles (salemanship again), and I suspect that he was equally uninterested in the height of the valve throw. The valve cluster is the one central element that an outside developer has the least amount of control over when approaching a manufacturer for a trumpet design - either the manufacturer has the tooling to make a certain set of valves or it doesn’t, and nobody is going to re-tool a valve set because a boutique designer wants it a certain way.
To sum up, the OP was inquiring about what can be expected when encountering a trumpet that is marked "CG," and I think all of the information presented was both clear enough and entirely confusing enough to make the matter fodder for continued discussion that might go years into the future. The one thing that can be taken away is that all of these trumpets are quite good in spite of their differences, and if anyone is looking for a strong contender for a commercial/lead trumpet they would be well advised to investigate any one of the CG trumpets discussed here.
As far as the CG trumpet being an "all-around" trumpet, I suppose any fully developed trumpet player could make any piece of equipment sound good. The only player I know of who played a CG trumpet in a classical or orchestral situation was Timofei Dokschitzer. |
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Trumpetingbynurture
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Joined: 18 Nov 2015
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 3:25 am Post subject: Re: CG Trumpets |
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| Liberty Lips wrote: |
As far as the CG trumpet being an "all-around" trumpet, I suppose any fully developed trumpet player could make any piece of equipment sound good. The only player I know of who played a CG trumpet in a classical or orchestral situation was Timofei Dokschitzer. |
Dokshizer played on a CG model? Any idea when or on what recordings? |
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