Vintage Reeds?

[Emmnemms]

um.... doesn't that sound like a BAD thing?Doesn't it just mean old reeds? Or is there something special about them?

[Peterogping]

Half a year ago, I bought an old mouthpiece plus some ligatures on German ebay. When the package arrived, they had included more mouthpieces, ligatures and some old reeds. Apparently, it was the complete left-overs from a deceased saxophonist. There were some tenor reeds, branded Professional #3 and some Italian alto reeds, branded Lucien, #1. The old saxplayer had meticuosly marked those of the reeds that he had tested with date, so I know these reeds are more than 30 years old.
Amazingly, I could play two out of three of the tenor reeds, and more amazing, four out of five of the Lucien reeds, strength 1. I normally play 2.5. (For the faint-hearted, I have only played the reeds that obviously were unused ;) ).
It is impossible to know whether 30 years of storage has improved the reeds or whether the quality of the cane was better at that time. And for all practical purposes, it does not matter. Fact is that these reeds play exceptionally well.
BTW, Lucien was produced by the company which now produces Daniel Reeds. I have tried these for tenor and have not been especially impressed. The company, now called Music Center spa, also produces the well known Pisoni pads. http://www.musiccenterspa.com/Produzione/index.html
In any case, I will be on the look-out for Lucien reeds on ebay. 8-)

[ChuBQ]

It depends, some old reeds are complete crap, some are great. I was lucky enough to obtain a few morre reeds from my friend, and it is unbelievably the best reeds id ever played on. The ugliest looking ones but the best ever. Morre was a reed maker who have a unique way to cure the reed making it possibly the best. Before he died he destroyed everything, thus no one know how he did it. Reeds like gonzales and v12 are just a imitations of it and from my experience even though i like those reeds they are really far away from morre reeds.

[Finnerski]

Come on, don't you know by now that every vintage sax related item is the only way to go? :D FWIW, I've bought some older Rico royal reeds (1980's) for tenor on ebay and they sure seem to work better than the newer Royals. I also recently got some 80's vintage LaVoz bari reeds on e-bay. I haven't tried them out yet but even if I don't like them, I only paid $8 for the box of 10. Anyway I see lots of people talk about how they prefer the older reeds more than the newer ones. I guess the saying, "they just don't make them like they used to anymore" is true with reeds also.

[harmonizerNJ]

Earlier this year, I found in my house two sealed boxes of LaVoz "Medium" reeds for Alto Sax. They were from the 1990's, before Rico bought LaVoz, and they had been sitting in my basement since then. Since these were still my "regular" alto sax reed brand and hardness in early 2008 (I have since switched to RJS), I was curious to see if I could detect a difference between the "1990's vintage" LaVoz reeds, and new boxes of LaVoz "Medium" reeds for Alto Sax.

Netting it out, I played through both of the older boxes over a period of weeks, and I detected no difference from currently sold LaVoz reeds. There were a couple great reeds in each box, plus the typical assortment of "pretty good" and "blah" reeds that I have always experienced with boxes of LaVoz reeds for the alto sax.

[Emmnemms]

Ah ok. I had been curious because i had seen them on ebay, and my first thought was that with age they would become brittle and crack easier, and be more difficult to get to vibrate... but i guess thats what i get for thinkin...lol