I found this through a web search, which as it so happens had nothing to do with saxophones. It was at a somewhat nearby Pawnshop. After looking carefully aat all the pictures I bought it online for $325 (though I did have the option of a refund within 2 weeks). Later that day I came to the shop and took it home
Here are the positives:
1) It needs everything redone as I think the pads are mostly all original, but the pads themselves have interesting resonators that I think I'm going to save.
2) Its lacquer is what? 97%? I think it is amazing considering this was made when no one had yet thought to put a roman numeral after the name of a war. It just is missing some nicks on the keys, but the lacquer on the body is mostly intact. In places it is 'crackling' like old oil paintings do.
3) No nickle to polish. I have this love/hate thing going on for nickle plating as I assume many others do. It does look good when clean, but it looks just terrible when tarnished or dirty.
4) The engraving is beautiful!
5) Has all the desirable features of that era: double socket neck and a three ring
The Bad:
1) no case.
2) dent in the neck
3) Low C won't close because it's cork stop pushes against the Eb rod.
4) High D is jammed and hard to move and I haven't been able to get the rod out.
5) The body above right around the G is bent at about a 2 degree angle. I think this may be contributing to issue 4 and the event that caused this may have also caused issue 3.
Playing a game of sleuthing out what happened, there are these relevant facts:
I bought it with its original king mouthpiece on the neck and the neck was placed on the horn
The entire beak of the mouthpiece was broken off and missing. There is a scraping of the type of stuff you might find painted onto cinder block right on the edge of the jagged break.
there was a slender neckstrap TIED to the upper-most strap ring.
I think this was a well taken care of horn that found its way into the neglectful possession of a family member. It was put away in a moist basement where the case deteriorated. When found during a move or something, the case was tossed and someone started to play the instrument. The neck-strap had a catastrophic failure during a concert, and it was tied back on for the rest of the gig with the horn largely unplayable. After this it was put in box or something, forgotten about again until it ended up at pawn decades later.
Now it's in the possession of an inexperienced tech who's a bit impatient, melts too many clarinet holes, and sometimes jumps in without properly studying how to apply the fix.
Lucky horn.
Here are the positives:
1) It needs everything redone as I think the pads are mostly all original, but the pads themselves have interesting resonators that I think I'm going to save.
2) Its lacquer is what? 97%? I think it is amazing considering this was made when no one had yet thought to put a roman numeral after the name of a war. It just is missing some nicks on the keys, but the lacquer on the body is mostly intact. In places it is 'crackling' like old oil paintings do.
3) No nickle to polish. I have this love/hate thing going on for nickle plating as I assume many others do. It does look good when clean, but it looks just terrible when tarnished or dirty.
4) The engraving is beautiful!
5) Has all the desirable features of that era: double socket neck and a three ring
The Bad:
1) no case.
2) dent in the neck
3) Low C won't close because it's cork stop pushes against the Eb rod.
4) High D is jammed and hard to move and I haven't been able to get the rod out.
5) The body above right around the G is bent at about a 2 degree angle. I think this may be contributing to issue 4 and the event that caused this may have also caused issue 3.
Playing a game of sleuthing out what happened, there are these relevant facts:
I bought it with its original king mouthpiece on the neck and the neck was placed on the horn
The entire beak of the mouthpiece was broken off and missing. There is a scraping of the type of stuff you might find painted onto cinder block right on the edge of the jagged break.
there was a slender neckstrap TIED to the upper-most strap ring.
I think this was a well taken care of horn that found its way into the neglectful possession of a family member. It was put away in a moist basement where the case deteriorated. When found during a move or something, the case was tossed and someone started to play the instrument. The neck-strap had a catastrophic failure during a concert, and it was tied back on for the rest of the gig with the horn largely unplayable. After this it was put in box or something, forgotten about again until it ended up at pawn decades later.
Now it's in the possession of an inexperienced tech who's a bit impatient, melts too many clarinet holes, and sometimes jumps in without properly studying how to apply the fix.
Lucky horn.