A Stencil named "Master"

tictactux

tictactux

Distinguished Member
Distinguished Member
Got a sax for touch-up from our band vault. It's a silver-plated Alto with MoP touchpieces and was, according to veterans, bought some 20..30 years ago when there was a surge of new players. It has no serial number, just the engraving "Master".

Anyone knows what maker this might be?

Some pictures are here
 
German, IIRC. I've seen that bell-to-body brace before. I'll check through some pics later.
 
OK. I did some searching. Here are some choices:

* Amati Super Classic. It's got the "cutout" for the bell-to-body brace. I don't like this choice because all the rest of the keywork looks wrong.
* Kohlert Bixley. It's got the cutout for the bell-to-body brace. Kohlert did go to the Selmer-ish G#/C#/B/Bb cluster on some of their horns. I don't like it because a lot of the keywork still looks wrong.
* Arta Guban Timisora. It's got the cutout for the bell-to-body brace. Keywork looks pretty similar. Unfortunately, I haven't any pictures of the octave mechanism on a Timisora that late. Therefore, I only like this choice by about 60%.
* Alfredo Santoni (particularly check the Buffet stencils). While the horn you've got doesn't have the same bell-to-body brace as the Santonis I've seen, the rest of the keywork -- particularly the octave mechanism -- looks pretty close. They also stenciled a bunch of horns for a lot of folks, including Buffet -- which had a Master model. I feel a bit better about this choice. Say, maybe 70 - 80%

I've been wrong before :D.
 
I've literally poured through hundreds of pics trying to see if I have anything close to what it in any of my images... and I don't. (BTW Pete, unfortunately I don't have any octave mechanism pics of the Arta Guban Timisora I have either. Check out the one on the German eBay site ATM.) The only thing that I have that was close--other than what Pete already listed--was close in name only. It was this World Master, which is just a big a mystery as your horn, but definitely German in origin. Yours, I'm not so sure that I'd say it's German. Yes it could be, but it also has some bits that look French--or at least French-copied.
 
I don't think it's Santoni. Octave mech is wrong (except the thumb bit), LH table is wrong, ribs on back C pillars, octave mech on neck, neck socket (body and neck)...
 
There are a number of attributes that copy Selmer's designs such as guard feet, rocking octave mechanism, shape of thumb octave key, adjustable bumpers etc. This may suggest that it is of Taiwanese origin since many of their brands are Selmer copies.
 
As said, I'm definitely not positive. I think playability is the big key. On my list, the playability scale from worst to first would be Timisora, Bixley, Amati and Santoni. I'd really like to say "Timisora" because of the identical bell-to-body brace, but I have seen some early Selmer copies with that dual-roller on the Bb key, which supports jbt's idea. However, I also know that Amati and Santoni (for a brief time) played around with direct Selmer copies. There's also the point that TTT's horn doesn't have a country of origin stamped and Kohlert, Amati and Santoni do seem to always have it stamped.

Kev, did you look at any of the Mogar horns? Those are also by Santoni.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom