Laskey with different font

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Elow
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Laskey with different font

Post by Elow »

I bought a laskey 85MD after i fell in love with another, but something has changed since then it doesn’t feel the same. The one i bought has a different font i’m pretty sure. Could it be a fake?
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mrdeacon
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by mrdeacon »

I'm surprised no one has responded yet!

There's two eras of Laskey font there's the older more cursive looking font and there's the newer more funky font (that's the one in the photo). I don't know when the font changed.

No real differences in the design between the two. But for better or worse Scott's pieces are consistently inconsistent and no two pieces blow the same. The pieces can blow pretty drastically different between each other. I don't think I've played a bad Laskey (unlike Bach) but they are all wildy different.
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Elow
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by Elow »

mrdeacon wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:08 am No real differences in the design between the two. But for better or worse Scott's pieces are consistently inconsistent and no two pieces blow the same. The pieces can blow pretty drastically different between each other. I don't think I've played a bad Laskey (unlike Bach) but they are all wildy different.
Yeah, that makes more sense. The one i played first was i guess the older one and was perfect. This one feels a bit too big in some way. Not much high school pieces require me to belt out petals and stuff so i’m trying to sell it.
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TheBoneRanger
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by TheBoneRanger »

mrdeacon wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:08 am There's two eras of Laskey font there's the older more cursive looking font and there's the newer more funky font (that's the one in the photo). I don't know when the font changed.
I think you have it back to front. The font in the image is the original, and it changed to an italicised font at some point later on.

Andrew (playing Laskey’s on most horns)
tbonesullivan
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by tbonesullivan »

That's definitely a real one. That looks like the more recent computerized font. My first Laskey piece has a slight mistake in the name, as I think they were hand engraved from templates.
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Burgerbob
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by Burgerbob »

I have the last 93D they sold, it has the same font. I assume it's the newer one.
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GabrielRice
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by GabrielRice »

I think I owned about 2 dozen 93Ds over about 10 years. They were all different - or at least I was never able to find two I liked best that were the same. The Italicized font appeared later in my collection; the one in the picture was what I saw first. My first favorite had the font pictured; the one that eventually replaced it had the italics.

Some of the ones I owned had an extra deeper groove cut on the outside between the knurling and the shank. All of those (I think) had a shorter cylindrical section at the beginning of the backbore and felt more open - too open for me and my horns. The shorter cylindrical section was easy to do a rough measurement for just with a pen or a pencil, and it appeared he had two basic ways he would cut the backbore, with some small variations within those two. I think I did have some without that extra groove on the outside that had the shorter cylindrical section, but for the most part you could anticipate it from that marking.

When Scott Laskey did custom work at Schilke, he was notorious for making players the mouthpieces he thought they needed, pretty much regardless of what they asked for. He was also known to be a tinkerer, a designer who was never satisfied and thought he could always improve on his previous work. We can be thankful for that - he came up with some incredible designs!

The 93D I owned that was most different from all the others was one I bought from Randy Hawes, who had bought it directly from Scott. It was noticeably smaller than any other 93D I ever had in every dimension except maybe the throat, and it had a noticeably different rim shape. I suspect he made it custom for Randy anticipating what would work for him. My friend Harold Van Schaik had one that was noticeably deeper than any others he'd seen; I'm not sure where he got it, but I suspect something similar happened there.

I find all of this fascinating for some unknown reason, but the upshot is this: if you like the 85MD you have, keep playing it and guard it with your life. You will probably never find another exactly like it. That's especially true with Laskey mouthpieces, but I have yet to find two mouthpieces from any manufacturer that feel 100% identical to me when I play them.
mrdeacon
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by mrdeacon »

Burgerbob wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:43 pm I have the last 93D they sold, it has the same font. I assume it's the newer one.
Your mouthpiece is part of the reason I assumed that!

Either way I do consider Gabe to more or less be the resident Laskey expert so I trust what he says!

Gabe I think I purchased your later favorite with the italicized font when you purged your Laskey pieces. That mouthpiece was fantastic and one of the best mouthpieces I've ever played. Pretty similar to Doug's XB stuff but wayyyy lighter. I regrettably sold it to Jack Schatz when I switched to Doug's stuff. I wish I still had it!
Rath R1 2000s, Elliott XT
Bach 42 1974, Elliott XT
Holton 169 1965, Elliott LB
Minick Bass Trombone 1980s, Elliott LB
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Burgerbob
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by Burgerbob »

Mine has some plating loss- I wonder if it was just sitting around for a long time. It's quite good, much easier playing than my "provenance" 93D, (which has the same font... though they feel, sound, and play radically differently)
Aidan Ritchie, LA area player and teacher
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bassclef
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Re: Laskey with different font

Post by bassclef »

Burgerbob wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:38 am Mine has some plating loss- I wonder if it was just sitting around for a long time.
I have an 85MD which was one of the very first batch to hit the market however many years ago. A few months after I got it, it started having significant plating loss. Thankfully, only on the outside of the cup and the shank. I reached out to Scott about it and he offered to have me send it back to him and he'd take care of it, but I never took him up on that offer.
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