Dear Valued Clients,
In 2004 our company bought the Valentino business from Pete Valentino. In July of this year, we sold the Valentino pad making division to Music Center of Trento, Italy. The pads will now be made in Italy by Music Center, and JL Smith will continue to sell the pads.
In addition to selling the Valentino manufacturing division of the company, we also sold the Valentino trademark – brand name. We manufactured many items under the Valentino brand name that were not pads. Music Center will only be taking over the pad part of that business. So JL Smith will continue to make items such as the washers for brass instruments, flute shims, and so forth. We will also continue to make accessory items like our instruments stands and flute wands.
If it had been branded as Valentino, and it wasn’t a pad, we will be rebranding these products. Anything under the tool and supply header will be branded “JL Smith Products.” Anything under the accessories items, like instrument stands and flute wands, will be branded as Altieri. Altieri, as you may know, is our line of instrument case covers and bags that we manufacture. Our repair kits, including the Director’s Fix Kits, will be branded as JL Smith Kits featuring Valentino pads.
You’re going to see some of these changes occur on our website, but also in correspondence to you including order acknowledgements and invoices. They will begin to have the new branding associated with it; we plan to have all the rebranding done by the end of this year.
As we transition away from Valentino branding on some of these items, we encourage you to do the same. That would be on your collateral materials, on your website, your point-of-sales systems, and in your store.
I’m excited to bring this news to you and really appreciate your attention on this.
I look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions about this transition.
– Jeff Smith