Expert: Kenton Scott - 10/28/2009

Question
I have a beat up silver colored coronet. On the from it has etched in "The Standard Chicago ILL 701". On the down tubes there are numbers "139", "140", and "141". What can you tell me about it. I used to play 30 years ago.

Answer
That's an interesting one.  There were several companies that used Standard.  There was the Standard Band Instrument Co, of Boston,  JW Pepper used it as a brand name, and he was based in Philadelphia with a store in Chicago as well for a while, and Pan American also used Standard as a tradename.  Pepper would also put his name on the instrument as well.  Pan American is a sub brand of Conn, which is based out of Elkhart, but Conn also had a store in Chicago.  But it is also possible that some Chicago music store used the name as a house brand.