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Back when Blessing was actually Blessing, weren't their 18's German made?

I've never spent any serious time playing any 18's. I've sold them with tubas and sold them to school children at my old brick and mortar store, but - back when I was playing store-bought mouthpieces - I always liked the 7 more, because the rim was narrower.
I did buy a Helleberg 7B when I was in the 11th grade, but wasn't aware of the difference between 7B and the larger one. I didn't like it very much, and it's probably because the rim was wider. I didn't know very much at all about anything. I probably knew nothing about anything. I believe the 7B, though, is more like those old chewed up Helleberg mouthpieces that people pay $400 to buy on eBay.

If JK makes their own mouthpieces in-house, then I don't know. If they are contracted out, then they are probably made by Lausmann in Germany, who model their mouthpieces (urban legend - probably true) on a set of Mt. Vernon "Cherries," which somehow made it to them, probably to keep supply up to demand during the changeover of Bach to Selmer ownership of the company.

Blessing mouthpieces were also made by Lausmann, as are GEWA, probably Faxx, Denis Wick to that company's specs, and some other companies, all under contract. To my knowledge, they do not make mouthpieces under their own name, only under contract (which reminds me of no-name breweries and distilleries which do the same thing). I have a couple of GEWA cornet mouthpieces, and their 1 1/2 C is very, very close to the Mt. Vernon rendition, which is noticably different from the Selmer version(s).

Here's one way to tell: does the JK 18 have a moderately wide outward sloping rim, kind of like a tuba version of trumpet 7C mouthpiece, or is it flat, or slightly rounded, more like a Wick 1 contour? If the former, then that is how Mt. Vernon 18's were made. If the latter, then it could be anything. At one time years ago I had sitting on my desk a Blessing 18 and three Bach 18's all side by side (from trades, borrows to compare, mouthpieces of friends' horns I was helping with, etc.). I can vouch for the notorious inconsistency: the cups were all the way from 1.25 i.d. to 1.29, and the rims were of all different shapes, from wide to narrow, and from sloping to slightly rounded. The only constant was the large throat that plagues Bach 18's. The only "spec" mouthpiece was the Blessing, with the 1.26 i.d., including rim, cup depth, throat and backbore to traditional Mt. Vernon spec.

I've always assumed that the old DEG knock-off mouthpieces were made by Weril in Brazil... The (pre-China) Blessing quality always seemed to be better. Is that a reasonable guess, or is it known to be correct/incorrect ?

I guess I'm wandering off on a tangent here, but the one thing that I miss from that DEG line is the mellophone 6V mouthpiece - which is basically a flugelhorn mouthpiece with a trumpet shank. It was nice to be able to buy those at a very low price and offer them to schools for low prices. There doesn't seem to be any budget 6V offered anymore by anyone - other than made of plastic in Wisconsin.

...Whether a mellophone naturally plays badly out of tune, or whether one plays fairly well in tune, there's nothing that screws up the sonority and the tuning worse than an adapter and a French horn mouthpiece stuck into one of them - along with the additional voodoo of French horn studio teachers thinking that their students playing on different rims is going to destroy their embouchures.

... and with apologies, I really digressed here.

Dents Be Gone! wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 9:06 am I have no useful knowledge on their generics, but do know that a certain guy in Pennsylvania made the Erickson and Bowman lines for them.

Would he have done such work?

That's perfectly believable and easily verifiable. It would make sense that the fancy signature mouthpieces would be made by someone such as that.

To wander off on yet another topic (which reminds me of another active thread), this same Pennsylvania maker has some drawings and even some computer scans of the original Lehman mouthpieces - which are supposed to be magical and mystical. One thing which may have sort of kept them from producing them could have been the fact that they don't have access to the two originals - which are extremely similar, very slightly different from each other, and made in two different places. I actually know where both are. They are both in the same place, but - like the tuba museum situation - they are actually being museumed in a little room of Lehman materials, yet the museum only serves the owner and no visitors. Further, neither of those mouthpieces are being played. It's hard for me to understand the collecting of viable things that aren't being used, but I know that widely exists as a pastime, and I suppose I should be more understanding of it.

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And is there a tuba mouthpiece among them, or only euphonium?

The insides (and outsides) of those Lehman mouthpieces both seem to be miniaturized Helleberg-style mouthpieces.

To my understanding, there now exists a "Helleberg"-style euphonium mouthpiece (which may be quite similar to the Leyman mouthpieces).

Both of those (which he used himself) are screw-rim mouthpieces, and quite delicately-made (not much excess wall/material).

I'm thinking that Mr. Warburton (a fine maker of mouthpieces) also made a Helleberg-style euphonium/bass trombone for Canadian Brass (before Yamaha took it over). I'm thinking it was designated "B 1". I'd wager that it was also similar to the Lehman mouthpieces, and was also delicately-made (lightweight/thin) and with European/old-old-Helleberg-ish exterior styling.

Apropros: https://www.ebay.com/itm/225736369063?m ... media=COPY

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Aug 20, 2023 8:58 amThe (pre-China) Blessing quality always seemed to be better. Is that a reasonable guess, or is it known to be correct/incorrect ?

Correct. They were made by Lausmann modelled on Mt. Vernon exemplars.