Germany
Adler & Company

Wood, metal, leather
ca.  1893-1903
Length w/o MPC:  15.75 inches
Wind Instruments – Woodwind Instruments – Single Reed

Stamped on wooden body: ADLER & CO / MARNEUKIRCHEN / B / L.P.

This octavin (oktavin) is a single-reed instrument in B-flat, patented by Oscar Adler and Hermann Jordan around 1893.  The wooden body has a folded conical bore, vaguely in the shape of the boot joint of a bassoon with a mouthpiece attached to the top of one section and a metal bell to the top of the other. There are 14 touch pieces and 3 rings, with a playable range up to the (written) C#.  The fingering system is somewhere between an Albert-system clarinet and a military-system oboe.  The first built octavin was by Julius Jehring (1824 – 1905) in 1881, at the age of 57 in Adorf, Germany.  Oscar Adler and Hermann Jordan of Markneukirchen obtained British and German patents in 1893.

According to Franklin Stover, “Jehring originally called it the schnabeloboe.   Adler renamed it the octavin, and in early ads it was sometimes referred to as  “das Deutsche Saxofon” because it was competing head-on with Adolph Sax’s invention.” 

The octavin never caught on and is an extremely rare instrument, though the American composer Jeff Britting (b. 1957) has composed a sonatina for octavin, which he later took out of circulation. This octavin has a wood & leather case, ligature, mouthpiece with cap, metal bell, and box of octavin reeds, all original.

Reference:  ‘Adler, Oscar,’ The New Langwill Index: A Dictionary of Musical Wind Instruments Makers and Inventors.’ by William Waterhouse; 1993.  Pub. Tony Bingham, London.