new out of the box this mouthpiece looks like a piece of jewelry, what everybody who seen it says and it matched perfect with the lacquer finish on my yanagisawa a990. in box: was a mpc- rico x lig -cap and d'addario 3s reed, plus pouch and box. all the reviews i read said this was a bright mpc, and i guess that depends on your definition of bright, my definition of bright would be like beechler bellite or arb mpc. needless to say this mouthpiece is not as bright as those mentioned. IMHO i think this mpc has a perfect match between having great high end without suffering the low end notes some people say altissimo is very easy to play with this piece, but my yanagisawa already has a effortless altissimo so i cant speak on this, still effortless with this mpc. The cap for this mpc is not much of a cap, i mean it will sit on mpc with reed and keep reed from drying out, but thats about it. not good for storage. That ligature...well honestly ive never been a fan of this kind of ligature, im a olegature fan and i lucked out there, because the olegature i have for my Dukoff and selmer/paris metal mpc fits perfectly. The free reed that i got, i played it for about 3 minutes and it went in the trash. but hey.. it was free so who cares. what really impressed me first, was how accurately this mpc is machined and of course the gold finish. overall.. i must say that i'm very pleased with this purchase and that i'm keeping this one to add to my ever growing collection. i cant settle for having only one sound. further more this mpc plays very true to your sound/playing and doesn't cover up anything or make you a better or worse player. it brings out YOU. if that makes any sense. i think i could really learn to play this mpc and enjoy the ride along the way. xxxjj