Conn Perfected Wonderphone in C, Bb and A
Date: 1908. Owned by Michael Keller
This model has an extra slide for tuning in C. This particular Perfected Wonderphone is a small bore.
As far as I can tell at this point, all Conn cornets built before 1955 take a short shank cornet mouthpiece as opposed to the 2¾" "Bach-style" long shank cornet mouthpiece. The long shank cornet mouthpieces will fit a pre-1955 Conn cornet, but won't give the proper intonation or playing characteristics of a short shank cornet mouthpiece. All of Conn's "Connstellation" cornet mouthpieces are long shank mouthpieces. The "standard" (my term) Conn mouthpieces such as the Conn 4 are long shank if there is a "ridge" halfway down the shank, and short shank if there is no ridge. Also, the long shank mouthpieces have "Conn" and the number of the mouthpiece stamped across the mouthpiece, whereas the short shank mouthpieces have it stamped along the length of the mouthpiece. All Conn cornet mouthpieces built before the "standard" series, such as the "Wonder" and "AI-412" are short shank mouthpieces.