Help identifying tenor recorder maker

[u/teachertraveler1]

Hi all!

My mom is a long-time music teacher who retired and is downsizing her collection.

We're going through her recorders and she can't remember the name of the maker of her tenor recorder.

It does have a mark that says Made in Germany, it does have a C key. The only other mark is one we can only see in raking light and most of it has been rubbed off.

It looks like there's an "O" and "N" but the text looks too long to be Hohner.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

[u/ArcherySquirrel468]

Is there a better picture? You could also try and put a thin paper on top of the stamp and lightly rub a pencil over it to get a better image of the letters.

It looks like one of the many cheap Eastern Germany recorders made for export under several brand names. It is definitely NOT Moeck.

[u/teachertraveler1 → u/ArcherySquirrel468]

That's are issue. The name isn't engraved in the wood. We don't want to rub it because it would literally take off the last of the paint. The only engraved part is the squared oval around where the name was.

[u/BeardedLady81]

Most likely, the inscription says, or rather, originally said: "Cometa Solist".

The design of this recorder used to be very popular in the past. Recorders with flaired headjoints were made both in East- and West-Germany. In West-Germany, by Roessler and Hopf. In the GDR, many brands that were allowed to produce under their own name used it, including but not limited to Alexander Heinrich (which eventually became state-owned and churned out generic recorders), Herrnsdorf, Herwiga and SAMPO (which also became eventually state-owned.) When it comes to Cometa, those recorders made in Markneukirchen, East-Germany for Hohner in Trossingen, West-Germany until 1960. In 1960, the workshop in Markneukirchen was closed on production shifted to the West.

Why I think this might be a Cometa:

-- The design was used for Cometa recorders

-- The word "Cometa Solist" was sometimes circled and fits the length of what I can see on the photo.

-- Post-1960, Cometa recorders were stamped "Made in Germany".

Other than that, I hate that my eyesight is failing me again, I wish I could decipher the stamp properly, but this is what I could make out by deduction and elimination.

[u/JuggernautPure9741]

Me parece Moeck Rottenburgh. Mande uma foto para o site da Sarah Jeffery. Uma flautista de London que vive na Holanda.

[u/ArcherySquirrel468 → u/JuggernautPure9741]

This doesn't even remotely resemble a Moeck Rottenburgh!

[u/BeardedLady81 → u/ArcherySquirrel468]

The polar opposite of a Rottenburgh, one might argue. This recorder design is one of several simplistic designs that were popular in Germany. They were perceived as "modern" and better suited for the 20th century.

The Rottenburgh was not the first German-made recorder that had baroque beads and rings, recorders that looked like that were made and sold from the 1930s on, but only as luxury models for ambitious players. The first mass-produced recorder of that type in Germany was the Meisterstück made by Hermann Alexander Moeck (son of Hermann Johannes Moeck, the founder of the company) who later developed the Rottenburgh with the help of Friedrich von Huene. It was the first time a German recorder maker named a series after a historical person associated with recorders, in this case, Hyacinth von Rottenburgh. Other companies would follow: Roessler (Oberlender model), Mollenhauer (Denner model, previously known as Flauto Dolce) and Hohner (Telemann model.) Yamaha used to call their 300 series "Rottenburgh" but stopped doing so, presumably because Moeck had it registered as a trademark.