This information was provided by Roger Tropman...who apparently found pieces of 7045 a few years back!

I have some information regarding bassoon #7045.  It is a rather wild tale.  I was given a very beat up Heckel bell joint by a retiring repairman in the Cleveland area around 1980 or so.  I asked him where he got it and he said that he received from a band director at Roosevelt Jr. High in the Cleveland Heights school system.  At that time they were closing down this particular Jr. High and the band director was cleaning out the room and gave the repairman an entire truckload of "junk"...which included this Heckel bell.  I began to wonder where the rest of the instrument might be.  I went to the the high school and asked the band director there if I could look through his cabinet where he kept all his old beat up and unusable instruments (I was at that time a band director and knew full well that every band room has such a place)  To my surprise, I found the wing joint and boot joint of a Heckel bassoon #7045.  The long joint was made of metal!!!  The original long joint was never found-I assume that it must have been destroyed.

I offered to trade this bassoon for a new drum set for the high school and the band director agreed. The famous repairman Conrad Kaufer, who happened to be German, offered to contact Heckel about purchasing a replacement long joint.  Mr Kaufer said that he could easily do the keywork if Heckel agreed to send a completed long joint.  Heckel said that they would not normally do this but since Mr Kaufer was known to them they agreed.

To make a long story short....Heckel sent the long joint but did not stamp their name on it.  Sadly...Mr. Kaufer passed away shortly after the long joint arrived and was unable to even begin work on it.  I contacted Heckel and they would only do the work if I sent the entire bassoon back and had it overhauled.  In an attempt to save some money, I had another repairman do the work of installing the keys using Fox castings.  Even more bizarre, he passed away within days of completing the work!!! Could this be a curse or what?

Anyway....the long joint is not original, the wood and tone hole work are Heckel, but the keywork is Fox.