A. Sax and Selmer

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
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Sometimes I get to be right. Well, I'm probably right. I think. Maybe.

It's fairly well known and documented that Selmer bought the Adolphe Sax plant and name about 1928. It's also fairly well known that Selmer introduced their first saxophone in 1922. Hey, that's even what their website says. However, Selmer advertised and sold saxophones way earlier than that. They didn't MAKE them though. They sold stencils, up through s/n 750ish. Dr. Paul Cohen (The Saxophone Journal mag and other stuff), Mark Overton (saxophone.org and saxquest.com) and I all have said that some of the early stencils looked a lot like Adolphe-Edouard Sax-made horns, but it was pretty difficult to confirm this.

I've been doing some research on the A. Saxes and their saxophones. Looking through some museum websites, I found this horn. An obvious Adolphe-Edouard sax instrument with the appropriate address engraved (84 Rue Myrha Paris), but it's also got "Henri Selmer" inscribed or stamped. Too bad that the Universität Leipzig doesn't have a picture of this engraving.

Again, this isn't really "new," but it's nice to have a confirmation.

So, I'll again mention: if you see a really early "Selmer" on eBay that you want to buy, just note that you might be bidding on a stencil -- and A. Sax is just one of the folks that produced stencils for Selmer.
 
Pete, you don't want me to tell you this, but I will - must be google xlate -

According to the web site, the sax is inscribed Adolphe Sax, address as described etc. but the mouthpiece has the Selmer inscription...



So sorry, it's not a stncil, it's a genuine item, with a Selmer mouthpiece.
 
Not to divert this thread, but I am interested in anything anybody knows about the Modèle 22 curved sop--of which I am a proud owner. Groovekiller wrote that they were constructed by Selmer from bodies left over from the A. Sax purchase, but my horn is from 1924, so if Selmer didn't buy out Sax until 1928 that doesn't make sense.

I've also seen pix of a Balanced Action curved sop, and as far as I can tell, it is exactly the same horn as the 22, except for the inscription (stamping) on the bell and the substitution of a pearl touch on the alt F# key.

Anybody got any info?

Thanks,
Toby
 
I'll see what I can dig up, as I probably had both horns on saxpics.com. FWIW, Selmer has said that they never produced a curved soprano. I assume that excepts the one they display on their website ....

Anything specific you're looking for?
 
Oh. While I am grateful that Selmer Paris has some good information and pictures on their website, it's things like this (pic attached) that annoy me when I'm trying to do research.

(I have the correct pic on my website.)

===========

Anyhow, I did come across a lacquer Serie 1922 curved soprano, so I can confirm that the horns were available slightly after the first Selmer Serie 1922 ran off the assembly line in 1922.

I think that you may want a comparison of the Modele 22 "Series" curved soprano to an Adolphe-Edouard Sax curved soprano. I'm not convinced that AE Sax (or his father) made one: I haven't come across one in my quest for AE & AJ Sax pics. However, I did mention that some Selmer saxophones may have been Couesnon stencils. The problem with that is the only Couesnon curved sopranos I've seen have split-bell keys. Couesnon did make split-bell key and single-side bell key horns at the same time, so there's a possibility ....

I did a write-up on the Selmer 1922 horns awhile ago. I reference the anguished-English version of the Selmer website where it mentions "curved soprano." I also link to a 1925 hand-written price chart that mentions a "Soprano en Mib" (i.e. "Bb soprano") that is in "Forme d'lalto." Sounds like a curved soprano to me. However, onsidering the date on the chart is December 1, 1925, it's probable that they're referring to a Modele 26, not one of the 22 Series.
 
SteveSklar said:
Pete, when I checked your thumbnail above .. it looks perculiously like a tenor sax to me.
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Note that it's obviously better than any Mark VI: it's got a four digit serial number.

Contra-soprano. I like that ....
 
I'm not looking for anything in particular; just trying to understand why there are so few of these curved sops out there. For the record, it plays very very well--excellent intonation and solid centering, even up in the short-tube notes, where my Conn straight from the same year, for instance, suffers notably. Tone is also quite unique--very present, front and center somehow.

If the horn were a lemon, it would make more sense that Selmer tried to bury it quietly, but it is not at all. Stranger still is the fact the in the BA era it was reintroduced without any real changes: by that time the high F was well established, and still it was keyed up only to Eb.

Kind of a mystery to me, but we will probably never know the story behind it.
 
kymarto said:
I'm not looking for anything in particular; just trying to understand why there are so few of these curved sops out there. For the record, it plays very very well--excellent intonation and solid centering, even up in the short-tube notes, where my Conn straight from the same year, for instance, suffers notably. Tone is also quite unique--very present, front and center somehow.

If the horn were a lemon, it would make more sense that Selmer tried to bury it quietly, but it is not at all. Stranger still is the fact the in the BA era it was reintroduced without any real changes: by that time the high F was well established, and still it was keyed up only to Eb.

Kind of a mystery to me, but we will probably never know the story behind it.
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I believe your assessment of the Selmer curved sop, and what makes it more mysterious to me is, I never cared musc for the STRAIGHT Selmer sopranos from the same time.

As for the B.A. curvy, Selmer created throw-back horns from time to time. Their Modele 22 altos and baritones that had no side Bb tonehole had aspects of Adolphe Sax saxes. The "Jimmy Dorsey" model looked back at the old Supers, and low A altos have popped up from more than one era of the Mark VI.
 
You could also point to a few other things:

* There were at least two very well established saxophone makers in France at that time: Couesnon and Evette-Schaeffer (Buffet). Their saxophones were arguably better than the Selmer 22 Series, as Couesnon won gold medals for their saxophones at a somewhat recent World's Fair and Evette-Schaeffer was just huge. In other words, would you want to buy a "specialty" horn from a company that's been manufacturing saxophones for a year or one that's been making them for 50ish -- and one of them was an A. Sax licensee?

* Remember that it's Selmer Paris vs. Selmer US. It's possible that Selmer Paris just said, "The Selmer NY curvies are good enough. No need to go through the expense of exporting another model, plus we might be competing against ourselves."

* It could be that the horns are so good no one wants to sell them.

===========

Take a look at that little price list, again. It lists some interesting options ("supplements"):

* "Two key acute." I think that's the automatic octave key. The first of the 22 Series had a keyed range from low B to high Eb and a double-register key. IIRC from my 1907ish Couesnon bari with a double-register key -- and I know Groovekiller can confirm or deny, as he's got a couple AJ Sax horns -- you need the second key for :TrebleClef::Space5: and above.
* Altissimo F key.
* "G# key." Probably a G# trill key.
* Eb trill. This is either an altissimo D# trill or it's the fork-Eb keywork. Both can be found on even some Mark VIs.

If anyone can enlighten me on what "argenture Americaine" is, I'd appreciate it. Looks like the translation is "American silvering," but that doesn't mean much to me. "Replating service for your American horn," perhaps?
 
I don't think any Modele 22s had double octave keys. The single octave key was pretty much standard on every brand at least ten years earlier.
My Adolphe Sax/Selmer alto, tenor, and baritone all resemble Selmer New Largebore or Selmer Super instruments more than anything else. Keyguards are different, ferrules are different, but not much else.
My Sax/Selmer baritone has the missing side Bb tonehole mechanism found on some of the Modele 22 Selmers.
 
Groovekiller said:
I don't think any Modele 22s had double octave keys. The single octave key was pretty much standard on every brand at least ten years earlier.
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Here's one.

Well, technically you're correct: the only ones I've seen with the double octave key setup are engraved/stamped "Serie 1922" :)

My Adolphe Sax/Selmer alto, tenor, and baritone all resemble Selmer New Largebore or Selmer Super instruments more than anything else.
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I think the Selmer AE Sax on the Selmer.fr website has the "cigar-cutter" octave mech. I don't have time to check, right now.
 
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