Morgan Company Makes Morgan Mouthpieces!

The Morgan Mouthpiece Company makes Morgan Mouthpieces.  This is a bit odd to say, but we design and create our own mouthpieces from beginning to end.  This is how companies like Meyer Bros, Otto Link, M.C. Gregory and other great mouthpiece makers made mouthpieces back in the 1940's and 1950's.  By the late 1970's, most mouthpieces were no longer produced by hand.  Most manufacturers had replaced skilled craftsmen with milling machines.  Interiors and facings were cut by machines.  Much of the knowledge and skill of the craftsmen was no longer utilized and in danger of being forgotten.  A skilled mouthpiece craftsman knew the importance of subtle contours of the interior, the accuracy of a “chart" facing, thickness of rails, quality of the rubber, hardness of the rubber, etc.  By the 1970s, much of this craft knowledge was not implemented by modern manufacturing methods.

At just nine years old, Ralph Morgan started learning the mouthpiece craft as an apprentice with Babbitt.  He lived through the “Golden Age” of mouthpiece manufacturing and studied and learned the craft from many craftsmen.  After serving in WWII, Ralph went to work for the Selmer Company.  Ralph retired from Selmer as Chief Woodwind Designer/Engineer in 1980 and then started the Morgan Mouthpiece Company with the purpose of bringing back the lost art and science of the chart-designed handmade woodwind mouthpiece.  

Ralph poured his knowledge and skill into the design of our products and we continue to produce the bulk of our product line exactly as Ralph did.  For most of our product line, we do not purchase blanks or rods from other companies, we make our own blanks from molds that Ralph designed.   We control the exact cure times and temperatures of our blanks.  We control the hardness of our rubber blanks.  All mouthpieces are made by hand with no assistance from machines.  Very few, if any, modern mouthpiece makers can make these same claims.

We continue to use Ralph’s rubber formula which is the same formula that was used by mouthpiece makers from the 1940s/1950s.  We know the exact ingredients of our rubber.  Like most companies in the 1950s, we still use pure rubber with no synthetic additives.  The individual ingredients of our rubber are ordered and then mixed here in Ohio.  Again, very few mouthpiece makers can make similar claims.  
Our goal is not to “copy” mouthpieces, but to make great original handcrafted hard rubber mouthpieces.  Many makers attempt to copy mouthpieces with CNC machines, 3D printers, milling machines, wax molds, silicone molds, etc.  While some of our models are “inspired” by popular vintage mouthpieces, all of our models are distinctly Morgan…designed and handcrafted by some of the most experienced mouthpiece makers in the world.    We allow our craftsmen to use their knowledge and skill to develop unique models many of which are unique to the market.

By utilizing skilled craftsmen rather than machines, we can respond easier to special order requests.  Since all of our mouthpieces are handmade, and our craftsmen are among the most experienced in the world, we can often customize a mouthpiece for our customers as special order request.

We make Morgan Mouthpieces.  We are proud to keep alive the art and science of producing hand-crafted, chart designed, pure hard rubber woodwind mouthpieces.  With over 160 models / variations, we have a mouthpiece for just about everyone.  This isn't your grandpa's mouthpiece!