Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Brand Loyalty - A little controversy


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Posted by Klaus on July 21, 2000 at 06:16:59:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Brand Loyalty - A little controversy posted by Rick Denney on July 20, 2000 at 23:47:28:

Of course it is not a fair comparisson to the stencil situation of to day. But around 1983 the Bach Mercedes trumpet was an instrument, that was considerably better made (and playing) than the Yamaha 300 series.

Stenciling is a marketing gimmick. And we still see it.

Winston hardly are making their instruments on own factories.

A very active participator on this board thinks that a very well nown maker exploits its own brand by adding the name of the nationality, under which its production took place centuries ago. But letting the production happening almost anywhere but in the two countries associated to the brand name. Sorry for being cryptic, but a lot of you easily can crack the encoding.

For me eBay is first off all a visual documentation of brasss instruments history. Of course there is a lot of boring standard objects, but fairly regularly something pops up, which I never ever had heard of.

However eBay is also an outlet for less desirable goods given attractive names. Imperial was the name given to the top line of Boosey & Hawkes instruments until around 25 yeras ago. To day the series can be seen as partly outdated in acoustical design, but a lot of the instruments still are very much better than most modern low price instruments.

"Imperial" is a tern, that can not be copyrighted, so in one case a cheap, not to say very cheap, instrument was offered at eBay with the stamping Imperial leading the seller to market it as a Boosey & Hawkes instrument. His only documentation for that was an invoice from the original seller, a music shop north of the US, that it was a B&H instrument. Double cheat: first voluntarily by a pro salesman, then involuntarely by an ignorant of brass instruments history.

The latter had the good taste to recall the B&H claim, when I notified him. Because he feared eBay and other legal problems.

More tangential a pro seller tried to "stencil" the compensating feature on cheap 4 valve euphs sold at eBay. I put out a question on another tuba forum. I think it was Rick, that made the seller retract his compensating "stamping", to the falsity of which he claimed ignorance. A standing not believable to me.

Once more: Pros are hardly fooled. But a few wannabees might jump the traps. Which are set up very professionally even by tuba dealers claiming to represent the very top end of this after all small market. A recent thread has pointed to that.

Klaus

Owning an old York, longing to join Frank Sinatra in singing New York. Be it only by a general overhaul.


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