Expert: Kenton Scott - 7/9/2008

Question
QUESTION: CONCERTONE Trumpet: Three pitch C,Bb, A with corresponding rings of valve slides and tuning slide(s).  Numbers on each valve 145,146, 147--"Made in Czecholovokia" Any info on its maker, or date?
LIBERTY Mellowphone with "LIBERTY" engraved in a shield, followed by "C.K.C.CO.  1011 McGee Street, Kansas City, Mo. U.S.A."  It has three interchangeable mouthpiece "crooks" of increasing length to lower the pitch, and corresponding marks on valve slides.  S/N 74761 on 2nd valve casing.  I live in KCMO, but have no info about the company.  What can you tell me about who made it, and how old it might be?
Thanks
Gary

ANSWER: The only company in KC that I know of was Jenkins.

The Concertone is a Czech instrument sold by Montgomery Wards between 1918-1939.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I've asked about the Mellowphone at Dillon Music, who suggested that LIBERTY was a Pan-American subsidiary of Conn, thus the C.K.C.Co. or Conn Kansas City, Co..  Is this another lead to its origin?

Answer
Hey you are right.  Why didn't I think of that?

And, Liberty was their model or tradename.  

I always figured they flirted with litigation, using both the Conn name and King's Liberty model name!

Conn of Kansas City doesn't come up in the indexes.  However, there are a couple of other examples of their line at:  http://www.horn-u-copia.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1135099587