I heard the following story from a US Army soldier, and trumpet player, who was there when the French Besson factory was liberated from the Germans in World War II. He was a close friend of mine, and played trumpet in the local symphony for some thirty years. His son plays trumpet in St. Louis, I'm told. His name was Harold Smitheman, and he passed away a couple of years ago. It seems that after the Besson factory was liberated, one of the US engineers came across the leadpipe mandrels that were used in pre war instrument producion. He noticed that the mandrels did not have an even taper, but had both hills and dips in them. Thinking them to be totally usless, the engineer put the mandrels in a lathe, smoothed them down to an even taper, and used them for some type of project. Thus the French Besson sound was lost to the world. Harold, who happened to own a French Besson protested, but rank has its privileges, and Harold lost the battle. Wilbert in SC
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