Mouthpieces Lawton Mouthpieces: Researching the History

[Fraser Jarvis]

It does look a bit shorter than normal. Could you measure the overall length and also the shank length ? I haven't noticed any different dimensions on the outside of Lawton pieces throughout the run but maybe I should start looking into that.

It looks like the marking on the left side are in the smallest font that Geoff used originally. Can you measure how long the word "LAWTON" is ?

What is the history of this piece and where did you get it from ?

Rhys

Hi Rhys. Yes overall length is 117 mm, the shank length is 22 mm and the word “Lawton” is 11.5 mm. It’s not been shortened I don’t think as it’s nicely finished and gold plated.

I bought it 11 maybe 12 years ago off of eBay I don’t know anything else about it.

 

[rhysonsax]

Hi Rhys. Yes overall length is 117 mm, the shank length is 22 mm and the word “Lawton” is 11.5 mm. It’s not been shortened I don’t think as it’s nicely finished and gold plated.

I bought it 11 maybe 12 years ago off of eBay I don’t know anything else about it.

Well that's a little strange. My tenor pieces have a shank length of about 25 mm but the overall length is only about 111 mm. I have no idea why your piece should have a longer overall length and a slightly shorter shank. That will give me something to think about.

The font size is what I call the small (original) and was used by Geoff from the start of Lawton pieces in the mid 1960s. I'm still trying to establish when that changed over to the medium size and then the large font, but it was large before Geoff died in 2003.

I would be interested to see some more pictures of your mouthpiece and I will now do some more measurements on other Lawtons.

Rhys

 

[Fraser Jarvis]

Well that's a little strange. My tenor pieces have a shank length of about 25 mm but the overall length is only about 111 mm. I have no idea why your piece should have a longer overall length and a slightly shorter shank. That will give me something to think about.

The font size is what I call the small (original) and was used by Geoff from the start of Lawton pieces in the mid 1960s. I'm still trying to establish when that changed over to the medium size and then the large font, but it was large before Geoff died in 2003.

I would be interested to see some more pictures of your mouthpiece and I will now do some more measurements on other Lawtons.

Rhys

I’ll take some compression photos and measurements in the morning with my Royal Marines Lawton, the piece I currently play on as I know it’s quite different.

 

[converse]

Re site, I'd put the contents of the "Home" menu top right as a bar along the top so you can see what's available immediately, and navigate there in one click.

Cool stuff. That gold icon is completely unlike any other Lawton I've seen. Re request for pricing info, I'm pretty sure I paid £182 for a bell metal 9*BB in 94/95, but can't find the receipt. I didn't like it much and sold it a few years ago. Still using a 9*B nickel silver.

 

[rhysonsax]

Re site, I'd put the contents of the "Home" menu top right as a bar along the top so you can see what's available immediately, and navigate there in one click.

Cool stuff. That gold icon is completely unlike any other Lawton I've seen. Re request for pricing info, I'm pretty sure I paid £182 for a bell metal 9*BB in 94/95, but can't find the receipt. I didn't like it much and sold it a few years ago. Still using a 9*B nickel silver.

Yes, that's how I wanted the top menu to appear and it is supposed to do that according to various YouTube videos about Google Sites. I guess that there are too many pages to fit in and so the software has decided to display the menu downwards instead. I will see whether I can fix that.

Re: the ICONs - I have five ICONs and they are all different internally but they all sound good.

Rhys

 

[Fraser Jarvis]

@rhysonsax . Sorry I messed up with my measurements yesterday mate, I said the length was 117 mm it is actually 107mm.

Also the silver plated 7*bb I currently play and had Sakshama open up to an 8*bb measures: 111 mm overall length and the shank is 28 mm in length, it also has the same size font as the 10b. Strangely the area above the bite plate is flat rather than raised as on the 10 b and other Lawton’s ive seen.

 

[rhysonsax]

@rhysonsax . Sorry I messed up with my measurements yesterday mate, I said the length was 117 mm it is actually 107mm.

Also the silver plated 7*bb I currently play and had Sakshama open up to an 8*bb measures: 111 mm overall length and the shank is 28 mm in length, it also has the same size font as the 10b. Strangely the area above the bite plate is flat rather than raised as on the 10 b and other Lawton’s ive seen.

Thanks for those pictures which I think will lead to a whole new area of research for me ! Would it be OK for me to use them ?

I have checked my whole collection and I have three Lawton baritones and one tenor with the flat beak shape. Three of those are stainless steel but one is made of bronze. I can't see any systematic pattern about age so it is currently a bit of a mystery whether one profile came first and was superseded or they were used at the same time.

Are you measuring the shank length at the top ?

Rhys

 

[rhysonsax]

It looks really good, but I find it a little hard to read the white text on top of the crinkly blue background.

That's a useful comment.

I have been trying to use backgrounds and graphics that relate to Lawtons, so the logo is based on a Lawton lig, the dark grey texture is a scan of one of the Lawton cardboard boxes I have and that crinkly blue background is supposed to be reminiscent of the tissue paper used inside Lawton boxes.

Google New Sites has an automatic function to adjust the background brightness and the font colour for readability, but some of the results don't work very well for some readers.

Rhys

 

[Fraser Jarvis]

Thanks for those pictures which I think will lead to a whole new area of research for me ! Would it be OK for me to use them ?

I have checked my whole collection and I have three Lawton baritones and one tenor with the flat beak shape. Three of those are stainless steel but one is made of bronze. I can't see any systematic pattern about age so it is currently a bit of a mystery whether one profile came first and was superseded or they were used at the same time.

Are you measuring the shank length at the top ?

Rhys

Hi Rhys, yes use away no problem. If you’d like to pm me you’re email I’ll get my Daughter to take some proper pictures and fire them over but it won’t be until tomorrow now.

 

[rhysonsax]

Jason Lawton of Lawton Mouthpieces has initiated a Kickstarter campaign with a goal to raise £20,000 by December 5th. The description says:

The project aims to generate sufficient funds to enable this small, family-run business enterprise to modernise its production processes and online presence to enable it to compete in the the 21st century. In return for the funding pledges, we are offering offering several fantastic rewards. These include the classic mid-range alto and tenor mouthpieces to be produced by the new processes. These are being offered at a significant (20% to 30%) discount from the retail prices that will be charged when the project ends. Everyone who pledges money for a mouthpiece will also be named as founding contributors on the new, upcoming Lawton website and will receive a 10% discount on all future purchases from the website for life! The website will include books, study materials and many other saxophone-related products.​

I have made a small pledge and am thinking about a larger one to get one of the new Limited Edition Lawton tenor or alto mouthpieces.

Rhys

 

[jonf]

Thanks for posting @rhysonsax I'll make a pledge today.

Jon

 

[nigeld]

I've made a small pledge. I already own Lawton alto, tenor and bari mouthpieces.

 

[Hankenstine]

Old Lawton baritone mouthpiece for sale here:

Lawton - Barton Baritone sax mouthpiece-vintage 100M | eBay

 

[rhysonsax]

Old Lawton baritone mouthpiece for sale here:

Lawton - Barton Baritone sax mouthpiece-vintage 100M | eBay

Looks like quite a nice one, but I already have two Lawton-Barton baritones and one tenor. The asking price on this is considerably higher than I paid on eBay for any of mine, but I have seen much higher asking prices recently.

The internal shape of these is a bit different to the later Lawton pieces - the Lawton-Bartons I own have a square chamber and arched throat, so a bit like a Selmer S80. They sound fine.

Rhys

 

[peterpick]

hello rhys, splendid work, this, thank-you. i have 2 ebonite lawton soprano mouthpieces at the moment, and one of them has brass rails for the reed-holder (the other does not). do you have any information about that variation, and would you like pictures? i prefer the ebonite pieces myself, i have a lovely alto 6b.

 

[rhysonsax]

hello rhys, splendid work, this, thank-you. i have 2 ebonite lawton soprano mouthpieces at the moment, and one of them has brass rails for the reed-holder (the other does not). do you have any information about that variation, and would you like pictures? i prefer the ebonite pieces myself, i have a lovely alto 6b.

Thanks for those kind words @peterpick.

I have a picture of the metal inlays in the grooves on this page. I have one such ebonite piece myself and remember seeing one other in a shop and just a small number in eBay sales over the years.

I haven't seen any definitive information from Lawton about this feature so I wrote the following on the relevant page.

Metal inlays for ligature grooves on ebonite models: Lawton has provided some ebonite models with metal grooves inset into the ebonite, presumably to reinforce them or to allow the ligature to slide more smoothly.​

I will update the webpages if/when I get better information.

Rhys

 

[Shack]

Rhys,
I know this thread is a bit oldish, but I wanted to thank you for it and for the Website. I recently acquired an 8starBB "special" tenor piece and had no idea what "special" signified. Your Website answered my question admirably.
Thanks again,
-Shack

 

[Saxamofone]

I bought a Lawton Tenor 8 back in the late 70's and it is still my favorite mouthpiece. I bought an 8*BB in the late 90's and loved it for the music I was playing at the time but I never play the BB these days and have gone back to the one I bought first. I've always felt like the integrated ligature design was perfect - the only issue I ever had with it is that I occasionally take an old Bari sax reed that gets chipped and clip it/adjust it as a tenor reed and with the Lawton I have to narrow the reed more than I normally would in order to fit it in that Lawton ligature.

@rhysonsax Would you like any pictures of my two Lawton Tenor pieces? Looks like you probably already have similar pieces in your fantastic collection!

 

[rhysonsax]

I bought a Lawton Tenor 8 back in the late 70's and it is still my favorite mouthpiece. I bought an 8*BB in the late 90's and loved it for the music I was playing at the time but I never play the BB these days and have gone back to the one I bought first. I've always felt like the integrated ligature design was perfect - the only issue I ever had with it is that I occasionally take an old Bari sax reed that gets chipped and clip it/adjust it as a tenor reed and with the Lawton I have to narrow the reed more than I normally would in order to fit it in that Lawton ligature.

@rhysonsax Would you like any pictures of my two Lawton Tenor pieces? Looks like you probably already have similar pieces in your fantastic collection!

I'm always interested to see pictures - what material are your two tenor Lawtons made from and where did you buy them ?

Rhys

 

[Saxamofone]

Both are gold plated ... the BB says "Bronze" on the box. The older 8 came with a Super 20 I bought at a pawn shop so no box.