Hammerschmidt Interestingness ...

[Helen]

Hello Helen,
sorry that I wake up this old thread - but I have a have a klingsor alto sax here, that a friend likes to sell and asked me for opinion. First of all I think it's a very well made sax with a beautiful sound and lovely features. I think the intonation is ok - but I didn't check exactly with a tuner, yet.
Do you remember about the intonation issues your hammerschmidt had? Which tones, which regions were off due to the neck?
Do you know which pads they used? This Klingsor has pads with brown plastic resonators in it ( one palm key an the neck vent white pads) that look and feel and seal very good. Do you think they could be original? And when could this beauty be made? It has the serial 04629.
Thank you for your help and ideas.

Hi there.

Would you be able to send me photos of the the sax? It will help in the discussion. Make sure some of the pads are visible in the photos. My email is: bassic.sax.ca@gmail.com Thanks!

Yes, I have lots of old Klingsor saxes--3 actually--and to my knowledge, the intonation problem only exists in 1 of them. Sadly, it is the one in top playing condition--well other than that tuning thing. The one thing they all share is a beautiful tone--or at least the potential for one if fully restored.

At this point I can't remember whereabouts on the horn the intonation problems existed. Playing the horn now wouldn't tell me anything anymore either, since my tech adjusted with the key heights in an attempt to fix things, but nothing worked. When we found out that the problem wasn't fixable, he never put the key heights back to what they were--why through good money after bad--so the tuning is now different than it was when I got it.

According to the research by German saxophone historian Uwe Ladwig, the sax you have in your possession would be circa 1979, since #4800 is from 1980.

I can tell you more once I've seen some pics.