Neville Young, Reporter
Vintage equipment: a Lancaster bomber roared overhead at low altitude and a group of trumpeters, kids, parents, and long-time trumpet dealer and repairman Fred Croft himself erupted from Fred’s garden shed - then the London headquarters of Professional Brass Services – to see. As we watched the magnificent aircraft lumber away into the gloom, on its way home from a ceremonial flypast for the Royal Family, I found myself reflecting on the Olds Recording trumpet that I’d been trying when we’d first heard the aircraft, and which I was still clutching possessively. As I contemplated making a wild dash for the garden gate with it, or worse, trying to justify its purchase to the rest of my family, I realised with a sinking feeling that I had just added another instrument to the rather short list called “Trumpets That I Really Want To Own.”
Well, it’s a couple of years later now and I still don’t own one. So when I heard that R. Dale Olson, formerly director of Research at F.E.Olds and Son, was lecturing at ITG I knew I had to be there to learn more about this company and its products.
Olson didn’t disappoint. In a well-illustrated lecture he took us through the history of the company and its products, and told us a bit about some of the personalities involved. For chapter and verse on this you are going to have to wait for Olson to complete his next book, which will be a history of the company. His previous book, Sensory Evaluation of Brass Musical Instruments, took Olson a mere fifteen years to write but he has promised to speed up a bit on this next one.
Olson charted the rise of the company from its foundation early last century through to its sad demise in 1979. Olds father and son – Frederick and Reginald – together spanned most of the company’s existence. Later Olson himself, Zig Kanstul, F.A.Reynolds (of King then Reynolds) and William Cardwell were,
amongst others, influential in the design and production of Olds trumpets. At its peak Olds was the biggest US manufacturer of brass instruments. Olson is clearly proud of his having been the other trumpet clinician along with Rafael Méndez and it sounds like they had some wonderful times together. As for the actual process of developing and prototyping a trumpet, Olson tells us “It’s like making sausages – you don’t necessarily want to see it being done,” although the fascinating photos he showed us, from his private collection, of various prototype instruments, didn’t make it look all that unappealing.
Olson also showed us a series of photographs detailing the various instruments in the main series of Olds trumpets that we remember so well and which are currently increasing once more in popularity. He made the point that essentially there wasn't much difference between the models - just bell materials, detailing, and so on - so the common perception of the Ambassador as a very good quality instrument is quite right - it's really more or less the same instrument as the others, not a built-down-to-a-price student model.
In the end, Olds disappeared not as the result of sudden catastrophe, fire or flood, or a loss of customers or of quality in manufacture, but as a simple commercial decision. It just wasn't making enough money. Olson does not disguise his feelings about the "Harvard MBA types" working for the parent company who, he feels, didn't understand anything about the economics of making and selling musical instruments. So one day the factory just closed, the contents and site were auctioned off, and Olds was no more. "A legacy had been quietly discarded but in its place a legend had been born," comments Olson. It's really hard to believe that a great name like that could just disappear: fortunately, the factory made more than one million instruments over the course of its history. As a result there are plenty around in the secondhand market. You don't see that many 1940s planes around any more, but my chances of seeing another Olds Recording in good condition don't seem so bad. Inspired by Olson's excellent lecture, I'll keep on looking.
