Cornet, B-flat, A, C, high pitch / low pitch
Maker
C. G. Conn
Date1902 ca.
Place MadeElkhart, Indiana, United States, North America
ModelConn-Queror Vocal Cornet
Serial No.76700
SignedEngraved on bell under dotted semicircular band: THE CONN QUEROR / C. G. CONN / MAKER / ELKHART / - IND. – MarkingsEngraved on bell below signature: M. D. Carmichael (original owner's name--see notes)
Stamped on valve casings, respectively: 3 2 1
Stamped on second valve casing: 76700 / S / PATENTED
Stamped on valve spring cases: 76700
DescriptionThis cornet was custom made for Murray DuBois Carmichael Sr. (1885-1955), who played it in the University of Chicago Military Band while he studied for his J.D. degree (1909). A Billingsville, Indiana native, Carmichael set up his law practice in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he eventually served three terms as the city’s mayor and two terms as a member of the Florida State House of Representatives. He owned extensive real estate, bred and trained fine horses, and developed and operated a golf course, an airfield, and a race track. And, not to be forgotten, his obituary notes, he organized the city’s first municipal band, in which he played trumpet (and perhaps earlier, this very cornet).
Brass, silver- and gold-plated with satin finish; bell interior, valve caps, and ferrules burnished; mother-of-pearl touchpiece inlays. Two alternative tuning slides for the first bow: 1. for the key of C: simple U slide; 2. for the key of B-flat: U-slide with additional small loop with its own small slide (alternative for high pitch and low pitch; only one slide preserved). Quick-change to A slide with stop rod between first and third valve. Three tower-spring Périnet valves with two unequal guide pins each.
DimensionsHeight: 316 mm
Bell diameter: 120 mm
Bore (second valve slide): 10.68 mm
ProvenanceMurray DuBois Carmichael, Billingsville, Indiana and West Palm Beach, Florida, ca. 1902-1955.
John Hammond Murray (1883-1953). Hagerstown, Indiana.
Ruth Feemster Murray (1899-1992), Hagerstown, Indiana.
Arne B. Larson Collection, Vermillion, South Dakota, 1979.
Published ReferencesMarshall L. Scott, _The American Piston Valved Cornets and Trumpets of The Shrine to Music Museum_, DMA Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1988, p. 92-93.
Margaret Downie Banks, _Elkhart’s Brass Roots: An Exhibition to Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of C. G. Conn's Birth and the 120th Anniversary of the Conn Company_ (Vermillion: Shrine to Music Museum, 1994), p. 38.
Credit LineArne B. Larson Collection, 1979
Object number00621
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