Prettiest Sax of the Moment

[pete]

I'll probably regret posting this cos I want it, but :

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Huller-Tenors...torefresh=true

What happened to the plating to make it white? Someone use Brasso on silver plate again?

I actually like the contrast of satin silver and burnished silver. I do think that this horn would clean up nicely.

I seem to remember that Helen's looking for one of these ....

[kevgermany]

No, looks as if they applied a translucent white lacquer. But it's come off in places. At least that's what the description says. I love the contrast between the highly polished silver motif and the white background.

I'll never be able to afford it, unless it goes close to the asking price, and I doubt it will. Helen's welcome to it!

[Helen]

I'll never be able to afford it, unless it goes close to the asking price, and I doubt it will. Helen's welcome to it!

Contrary to what everyone might think, I don't have unlimited amounts of cash laying around for horn purchases &/or overhauls. I have to be careful what I spend. I just don't have children, so I don't have the expenses associated with them. Money that my friends might spend on little Bobby's braces, or little Jenny's piano lessons, I get to spend on myself. What can I say, I was an only child. (Unless that triplet thingy' with Pete pans out, and then I might have me a brother.)

[kevgermany]

Contrary to what everyone might think, I don't have unlimited amounts of cash laying around for horn purchases &/or overhauls. I have to be careful what I spend. I just don't have children, so I don't have the expenses associated with them. Money that my friends might spend on little Bobby's braces, or little Jenny's piano lessons, I get to spend on myself. What can I say, I was an only child. (Unless that triplet thingy' with Pete pans out, and then I might have me a brother.)

There I was thinking you were one of those super rich musos, living in West Coast, money no object luxury

And I'll be dead if I buy that horn and take it home. A sop I can nearly justify, cos I haven't got one, but a fourth tenor, when two are in in different states of rebuild, and I've 4 altos, two in rebuild doesn't help.

[pete]

Another Dolnet for y'all. Earlier than the one Steve posted a few pages back.

Oh. I'm pretty sure it's silver plate, not nickel. I owned a silver plated curved Evette-Schaeffer Bb soprano that was earlier than this Dolnet and it shined like nickel plate after I cleaned the black/purple off. 1/2st half of the 20th century, Europe must have used some heavy plating.

What would be exceptionally kewl on this Dolnet is to have read pads. That pad choice was original and I think it'd look great on this horn.

[pete]

Yes, these are a bit more common than most of the horns in this thread, but how can you say no to a horn engraved this nicely?

Silver Plated 1935 Selmer Balanced Action Baritone.

[pete]

Oh, let's stick with that Selmer theme for the moment.

1931 Selmer Super Series ("cigar cutter") Alto.

There's a thread around here, somewhere about a brand new, in plastic, 50 year old Mark VI. This one beats it by a few years.

[pete]

1932 Couesnon "L'Armee" Eb alto in silver plate.

(I've mentioned before that you determine the production date of older Couesnons by the number in the "grenade fruit." Not quite sure how the seller came up with 1915.)

Beautiful horn that was more than a tad overpriced in the eBay ad ....

[pete]

This time, I'm going to post a website: http://www.music-privilege.fr/instru...saxophone.html

It's really not that they have some unique, rare instruments. These are just new horns. You click on the link for the horn and get all of two pictures. Picture #1 is essentially a thumbnail. Picture #2 is generally in excess of 20MP. We're talking huge. See the attachment (Selmer Serie III Jubilee lacquer alto).

Selmer.fr did have some insanely large pics for those of us who had access to their "special" area (not enough pics there), but it's nice to see Yamaha and Yanagisawa get the same treatment.

[pete]

The second horn is more striking than beautiful. It's an Akustik from VEB (see Helen's galleries of VEB stuff). It's striking because the "pearl" inlay is RED. I do think it's original: I've seen many horns with the "screw on" pearls and I've seen many other horns with various colored stones or glass in place of the pearls.

Here's one in blue.

[SOTSDO]

...make it sound better????

[pete]

From what I understand, Akustiks' needed all the help they could get, so I really hope they made the horns sound better. Definitely pretty, tho.

I'm actually quite fond of the various key inserts that manufacturers have used over the years. I even like the stones on the Cannonball horns, but saying that the cosmetic enhancements do anything for you, that's a different thread.

Speaking of "key inserts," I keep forgetting to post the link to this sax on the Selmer.fr website. It's a s/n 9909 (1928/9) alto -- that's in the New Largebore serial range -- that was specially made by Selmer for the 1929/1930 Barcelona International Exhibition. It's got amethyst inlay, silver-plated body and gold-plated keywork. Picture linky. (Here's the original Selmer link.)

[Helen]

I wrote an article about how the Akustik evolved into the Weltklang. In short, the story goes like this:

Akustik saxophones were originally built in the former East Germany, by VEB Sächsische Musikinstrumentenfabrik Klingenthal. As had become the political norm in Eastern Bloc countries, on January 1, 1953, the company was forced to combine together with the Signal-Instrumenten-Fabrik Markneukirchen, and the Vogtländische Etuifabrik Adorf, to form VEB Blechblas- und Signal-Instrumentenfabrik.

Originally VEB Sächsische Musikinstrumentenfabrik Klingenthal produced only alto saxophones. Then in 1950, they began manufacturing tenors as well. Until the company’s expropriation in January 1953, approximately 2000 altos and 2500 tenors were made.

After the creation of VEB Blechblas- und Signal-Instrumentenfabrik, Akustik production continued until the beginning of the 1960s. The brand was then replaced by Weltklang.

Looking at the early Akustik instruments made by VEB Sächsische Musikinstrumentenfabrik Klingenthal, you can see the similarities to their Weltklang successors.

There is currently a Weltklang tenor on eBay that is very interesting. It's not like one that I have seen before. It's serial # is 3975, and has the glass key touches of an Akustik. I wonder if they used up the Akustik parts on the early Weltklang horns? That would make sense I guess. In any event, it's interesting FWIW.

[kevgermany]

Helen, I think you're right, I've seen a couple of these red 'pearl' Weltklangs on ebay here.

[Helen]

Helen, I think you're right, I've seen a couple of these red 'pearl' Weltklangs on ebay here.

The next time you see one of those Kev, keep an eye on the serial number, and if you remember, fire off an email to me. I'm now curious about them. I'd like to track the serial numbers and see if we can track a pattern, and if we can see a clear serial number range when Weltklang dropped the glass in favour of pearls. I'm also wondering if they made any early horns without glass at all.

[pete]

My opinion is that you're going to find a s/n grouping. It's unfortunate that I don't have a "real" Dolnet serial number chart, because I'll bet that the Dollies with the glass/plastic inlay were from about the same time. It wasn't on horns for very long.

[kevgermany]

The next time you see one of those Kev, keep an eye on the serial number, and if you remember, fire off an email to me. I'm now curious about them. I'd like to track the serial numbers and see if we can track a pattern, and if we can see a clear serial number range when Weltklang dropped the glass in favour of pearls. I'm also wondering if they made any early horns without glass at all.

OK, I doubt you'll see any without 'pearls', I don't remember seeing any post WWII saxes without them. Or do you mean going from coloured plastics to pearls? I've got a really scruffy Akustic. The red pearls appear to be some kind of plastic, not glass.

[Helen]

Sorry about the confusion Kev. What I meant by that was that the Akustiks all seem to have coloured glass (or plastic apparently) key touches where the Weltkangs had mother of pearl.

The next time you happen to see a Weltklang with coloured glass or plastic mother of pearl key touches, drop me a note if you remember. It will be interesting to see when in the serial number range of the Weltklangs, the MOP began, and the glass/plastic ended.

[kevgermany]

OK, will do.

[pete]

Martin Master ("Typewriter") alto. Gold plated.

This eBay'er consistently has extremely pretty horns.

[pete]

Gretsch Commander Eb Alto

First, I do want to mention that a whole bunch of folks made saxophones under the "Gretsch" name, particularly Holton. This one is almost certainly a Buescher Aristocrat stencil, tho. Compare the keywork to a New Aristocrat (particularly the G#/C#/B/Bb keywork) and you'll be sold on that ID.

If you don't mind stencils, I'd bet you could call the seller and get it for under $500.

Gretsch.JPG

[pete]

A Mahillon straight soprano.

[Chris J]

Very nice

But I am a sucker for a bit of bling and a perfectly exposed and composed photograph!

Chris

[Helen]

I remember that horn... Let me see here... Oh yeah... That's one of the ones I haven't uploaded into my gallery yet.

It's from Montreal's, Randy Cole, and was originally on eBay on October 2011. WTF is that spoofed eBay ad doing on that Russian site?

I have a few Mahillon horns in my picture collection that I haven't uploaded yet. I haven't quite figured out what to write about them though.

[pete]

Penzel Mueller Alto.

The horn's a Buescher Aristocrat stencil, of course, but that's some kewl engraving.