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Admiral Saxophone

Has anyone ever run into an Admiral Saxophone? If I had to guess I would say it is from the 60's. The only markings on it is the name and a serial number. It does have rolled tone holes. I am trying to figure out who the manufacturer is. Any help is appreciated.
Rick
 
Yes, I've heard of Admiral saxophones. That said, we would need to see pictures of the one you're talking about to say anything concrete about it.

Admiral was a stencil name, meaning Admiral hired another established saxophone company to make its saxophones for it, and didn't make its own instruments. The Admiral saxophones that I have seen with rolled tone holes were older than the 1960s, and were made by Max Keilwerth.

If you have photos, please upload them here. Or if the horn is for sale online, please add a link to the auction. Thanks!
 
I don't think so. Anybody should be able to do so. Send them to me at: bassic.sax.ca@gmail.com I'll post them in the thread for you.

As for posting them in the thread, I wrote a post years ago on exactly how to do that. I'll have to see if I can dig it out for you.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I did a bit of searching for Admiral saxophones, and did come across a Julius Keilwerth that was stencilled US Admiral. Interesting...It was at least for me, since I collect JK stencil names, and it was not one that I had heard of before.
 
It's a Hammerschmidt, but a stencil that I have never heard of before. I'll write about this later....

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Sorry I didn't get around to finishing my reply to this thread yesterday, but stuff happened. In any event, here are my thoughts about this this interesting sax....

Given I've literally been collecting research and images about Hammerschmidt saxophones for years, I was extremely surprised when I opened the email yesterday from NH Sax yesterday, to find myself looking at what clearly a stencil of a Klingsor tenor.

Hammerschmidt did make some stencils, but unlike their contemporaries like Keilwerth and Dörfla & Jörka, they made very few. With the Admiral brand, this brings the stencil names that I have seen to a total of 9. The others are: DABICO, Genton, Hüttl, LE MEILLEUR DU MONDE, Lipson, Silvertone, Velvetone, and of course Lafleur and Lafleur De Luxe that the company stencilled horns for for the British and Japanese markets.

It's easy to ID this Admiral as a Hammerschmidt despite its unconventional key guards. The octave mechanism; dual octave vents on the body; left thumb rest & octave lever; shape of the left & right palm keys; engraving (Hammerschmidt used that same floral engraving on some of its Klingsor horns); shape of the left pinkie cluster; as well as the shape of the right pinkie keys, all make this a clear Hammerschmidt stencil horn.

As far as the quasi eyebrow-style key guards are concerned, Hammerschmidt did make those as well. I have documented some of those over the years, but two recently popped up on eBay that I wrote about on the blog portion of my website. One is perhaps the prettiest sax I have seen in years.

If anyone is interested in reading more about the Hammerschmidt company, you can find info on them on my website. I realize that I should update that page soon. Like a number of the pages on my site, it has been a number of years since I wrote it, and I have new info and images to illustrate the page with. Nonetheless, the page contains no errors that I know of, and offers readers a good overview of the company's history in the saxophone world.

For those of you interested in all things Hammerschmidt, I do also have a series of articles on the blog portion of my website about the company. It's an easy way to find all the articles I have written about them related to saxophones. Some are more interesting than others, but for those of you looking for info on all things Hammerschmidt, you'll find some gems there.

And lastly, I also have an a fairly extensive Hammerschmidt gallery on Bassic Sax Pix. (817 images at the time of writing.) There you can see the horns with the various types of key guards--although I have not updated it with the latest eBay offerings that I wrote about on my blog a few weeks ago--as well as the stencils I've stumbled across during the last decade or so of German saxophone research.
 
FWIW, I'm fairly sure that I have some pics of a non-stencil Hammerschmidt with the same keyguards, but I haven't uploaded them yet. Even if I don't, they're kinda similar to the keyguards on the Josef Hammerschmidt horns.

I really need to upload more stuff. I did a few dozen horns in the past couple weeks, but that's not keeping up with my backlog. I also should be checking your 'site, Helen, so I don't upload the same horns.
 
FWIW, I'm fairly sure that I have some pics of a non-stencil Hammerschmidt with the same keyguards, but I haven't uploaded them yet. Even if I don't, they're kinda similar to the keyguards on the Josef Hammerschmidt horns.

Yah, that Josef horns remains a wee bit of a mystery. A very pretty one, but still a mystery nonetheless.
 
Thank you for the info Helen. This is most useful


You're most welcome NH Sax... Glad to be of help. Some horns are much are harder to ID, and it is almost impossible to be definitive about them. Yours was a slam dunk in under 5 seconds. :D
 
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