Recently we received an email from a trumpet player who had purchased one of our straight mutes in 1975. He was disappointed that one of the corks had broken and jokingly said that he was disillusioned that the cork had only lasted forty-one years. How could he replace it? How much would it cost? He was unaware of our unconditional warranty on all corks, including loss, breakage or being eaten by a dog, at that time. This has changed since and you will need to purchase replacement corks from us on the “Buy” page.
We produced twelve mutes in 1968, going to trumpet players of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. We have not yet received any cork replacement requests for these first twelve mutes. Since 1968 we have greatly increased our mute production to include mutes for all brass instruments (except tuba) and we now sell between 10,000 and 15,000 mutes a year.
Of these thousands of mutes we occasionally receive requests to replace lost, broken, or corks chewed off and eaten by the family dog. We put glue strips on the back of the cork. Simply clean off glue remains from the previous broken, lost or eaten cork, remove the paper backing on the new replacement cork and stick it on.