How much does wear and tear of tiprail affect playing quallity?

[Hinzaldi]

I own a Vandoren V16 T77 which I played for about ten years. A very nice piece indeed. The tiprails have by now a noticable wear of the golden top-layer. I wonder if, and how much the playing quality is affected. Opinions? (see picture)

[pitsen3]

Does it seal well? Take the mouth piece off of the horn and seal off the back with the palm of your hand. Now place the mouthpiece in your mouth and press the reed to the tip rail. Now suck air in to create a vacuum in the mouthpiece. When you release the mouth piece from your mouth you should hear a pop. Note that this is somewhat dependent on your reed, so practice this procedure and try several broken in reeds before you determine whether it seals or not. If it seals it most likely just fine. This is a good test to check the condition of your reeds. Note that they seal a bit better after they are played a bit.

[Sakshama]

Not much in this case but generally depends on the players mouth acids. Some have more some less. I heard reports people going trough a metal mouthpiece every 6 months.

[mfry]

It doesn't matter until it does. If it still plays good, there's no problem. Eventually response will start to suffer.

[brasscane]

As a follow-up question, are there differences in the rate of wear between brass, bronze, and silver? I gather stainless steel is pretty much resistant to wear and that the same goes for other really hard alloys such as those used by Zagar, but if this is in error, please correct - thanks!