Olds Trumpet production data – 1969 – 1978

I recently located an old email from Alan Rouse from 2004 with some interesting data regarding trumpet production in the last decade of F.E. Olds and Son.

In a recent email with Alan, he did not recall where he received this data, so the source is unknown, but the data seems believable. Note, this only includes trumpets, so cornets are not included in this.

Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2004 09:10:42 -0400

To: dr_pepp@hotmail.com
From: alan@rouses.net
Subject: Re: olds prices on ebay

Ok I found the list…

The following are production totals for trumpets from 1969-1978:

133,771 Ambassador Bb
8,209 Pinto
7,259 Special (5406 Rose brass + nickel silver; 1704 all nickel silver; and 149 silverplate)
4,111 Superstar
3,757 Recording
3,152 Studio (1969-1973)
2,968 Super
1,600 Mendez

1,576 Custom Bb
433 Clark Terry (373 Lacquer + 60 Silverplate)
325 Custom Bb Large Bore
273 Ambassador Eb
288 Aida
247 Opera (1969-1973)
220 Custom High Register (CHR)
191 Custom C
157 Custom Eb

69 Olds Trumpet in F

If I added that up right, it’s a total of 172,716 trumpets in ten years. 77% of those were Ambassadors. A few observations:

Ambassadors cost more, but were far more popular, than Pinto’s
Clark Terry trumpets were only made for a couple of years. They were the most expensive, but apparently more popular during 1977-1978 than any other Custom models.

The SuperStar was priced the same as the Recording, and was only offered for the last 6 of the 10 years…yet more SuperStar’s were sold from 1973 thru 1978 than Recordings from 1969 to 1978. IMO this is partly because it was a silverplated horn.

The Recording was 4% more expensive than the Super, but still sold about 20% more horns.