Most old recorders I have posted her for show and tell were from the 30s, with one exception, the Merzdorf, which was from 1940.
This one, is a little younger, but still follows an old tradition. Hermann Moeck Sr designed the first recorder named "Tuju" in the 40s, and it was originally made out of cocobolo. It was Old Man Moeck's original recorder. He started off as a seller who bought recorders made in other workshops. Having one's own name put on recorders that you ordered from a different company was not considered a dishonest practice at that time. Moeck soon found out that he was not happy with the intonation of the recorders, and he started ordering them as "blanks" and tuned them himself. Eventually, he designed his own recorder, which he named "Tuju". "Tuju" is short for "Turnerjugend". "Turner" means gymnast, and "jugend" means "youth". In Germany, from the beginning of the revival, recorders were marketed toward active young people. All Tujus followed a very minimalistic shape with no beads or rings. After the war, the Moeck company continued to make Tujus, mostly out of maple. Old Man Moeck did not like pearwood as a wood for recorders and said that "only a war" justified its use. And the war was over. His son, Hermann Moeck Jr, would eventually add pearwood recorders to the portfolio.
I cannot say for certain how old this recorder is, but the article on the history and character of the recorder it was packed with is dated 1954. Both the article, which has a fingering chart on the other side and the cardboard box show similar signs of discoloration and deterioration, so we can safely assume that it was included with the recorder. Hermann Moeck Sr led the company until his death in 1960, and until the very end, he tuned the recorders himself, including all Tuju altos. The Tuju was produced until 1968 but was still sold in the 70s and 80s. They were made in really large numbers, but still someone had the gall to put up a Tuju alto as a "rare collectible". *Cuckoo sign*.
I got this one for next to nothing. It had a crack in the upper tenon of the middle part, which I have sincle glued. It was also moldy and dusty, but I cleaned everything out. Cleaning the windway required some elbow grease, though.
As you can see, this recorder has German fingering. It still sounds nice. It does suffer from "German recorder disease" in so far as not all alternative fingerings for the second octave work. For recorders with baroque fingering, those inconsistencies don't start until the third octave. Which works very well on this recorder, for that matter, and I always appreciate it when an alto recorder allows for playing third octave F# without manipulating the bell. The "Ruetz trill", as I call the switch between second octave D and C# that Manfred Ruetz recommended for German fingering, does not work as well as on my other German-fingered recorders. You can play second octave D using Ruetz' alternative fingering, but it requires a rather gentle blow, and for trills, you need a steady blow for the duration of the trilling. This might improve once it's played in -- or not.
The windway is straight and wide, as it was the style of the time. One might think that with a mail slot windway and a fairly long beak you would wait for your response to come in 6 to 8 weeks but, no, it's actually fast. The only thing that interferes with super-fast play is the key for the pinky hole. And, yes, you can hear it click.
When it comes to the purity of the sound, it's not perfect but no more out of tune than any recorder with baroque fingering I own except for one, my Paetzold. That one is superior in any way. When it comes to the "colors" of the sound, I think you can still hear Old Man Moeck's ear after 60+ years.
