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Late model Mark VI tenor

It only holds true as long as there is a purchaser for an instrument at a price that merits buying it and holding onto it.

Of course, each of us has a different point at which we have to say "I can't be tying this much money up for this long with no certainty that I will get a return on my 'investment'." For many, this point is well out of reach (i.e., they don't have enough money to get into the door in the first place). But, once that threshold is past, you then have to have the market functioning whenever you wish to "cash out" your investment.

And, I submit, with the market largely being driven by musicians (many of who are marginally employed in the best of times), when things go south there are going to be fewer and fewer around to pay the kind of price that will allow those who are in it for "investment" purposes to sell.

There's also the scarcity issue working here. Ain't no new Mark VIs being created, which functions to make the "investment" angle a bit more workable. But, the lack of income for musicians probably balances that side out.

However, it's not the worst example of this sort of behavior. Take Beanie Babies, the little stuffed animals that became something of a "craze" over here starting in the early 1990's. There, the combination of a mass produced (but restricted availability) item with "hype" caused a massive over-investment in something that had absolutely no real "worth" (i.e., none of them were being used as toys).

When they cost $3.99 (or whatever) and were bought as toys, there was no real problem. When certain "rare" toys were bid up to the stratosphere by folks viewing them as a form of lottery, the problems started. The very sort of people who are the target market for lottery tickets threw the rent money and amassed "collections" that were built with the intent of cashing in.

Watching the Classified ads (in search of saxophones) allowed me to track this phenomenon pretty closely. During the height of the craze, prices offered for certain toys would slowly creep up, while prices for sale of these same toys (listed by name) would creep downward until they reached equilibrium. However, when the crash came (along about 1999), the reverse was true: offered prices moved down in a hurry, and for sale followed, relentlessly. Priceless...except for those who had "invested" their rent money in the "hobby".

All shades of the "tulip craze" in The United Provinces of the Netherlands, which peaked and crashed in 1637 (or not, depending upon which account you read), and my old pal John Law and his financial scheming.

Well, not quite. John Law's operation was based upon fantasy, just like Bernie Madoff's recent scheme. At least with tulips, Beanie Babies and Mark VI saxophones, you still have the speculative item in hand. If you are a flower lover, a small child, or a saxophone player, there is your residual value. (A similar case can be made for the wardrobe investor.)

And, none of this means that I haven't enjoyed the resale value of a Mark VI in the past. I have owned five such horns (my original set of SATB, all bought when they were "affordable", plus a tenor from the "good years" that my wife blundered into via the Classified ads in a small town paper), and I have sold each of them for what seemed like obscene amounts of money, this to put the money to what seemed like better purposes at the time.

But, I'd never put anything in a musical instrument that I wasn't willing to kiss goodbye for good, i.e. they are something with which I could do without if they were to vaporize and the insurance were not to make good upon their loss.
 
On a somewhat different tack,

The idea of "investing" in an instrument got me thinking about the age old, often debated question of, "What's the best saxophone to buy?"

I generally answer that question with a question, "In terms of WHAT?"

I've played about a dozen Mark VIs and they're wonderful saxophones. Yes, I'm sure that there was one VI or range of VIs that have the "perfect" balance of brass composition and bore design that suit my playing the best, all of the ones I've played were really, really nice horns.

ASIDE: While I don't accept the arguments that SOTSDO and I mention in posts 17 & 18, it IS true that Selmer tinkered with the design of the VI over the 20ish years it was produced (longer for some pitches). Therefore, there may be a "best" VI for MY style of playing, but it's not necessarily YOUR best. Ya with me on that?

Anyhow, with a car, you can always talk about buying a car that'll get you there or one that'll get you there in style, but there are profound differences between my Chevy Malibu and a Maybach.

But both get you there.

At some point, you want to get the horn that will suit you best, but ALL true professional models are ... professional models. You really can't say that a Mark VI is "better" than a Conn 30M or a SML Gold Medal because ... they're different. Hey, you can still sound like Charlie Parker on a Yamaha 23 if you've got the chops.

However, recent horns are designed in such a way that the natural intonation problems inherent in the saxophone design can be smoothed out considerably, thus you don't have to "fight" the horn as much to keep it in tune. This is mentioned in some depth in a thread about the rather new Yamaha 82Z at http://www.woodwindforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1958.

For what it's worth, the absolute best horn I have ever played was a mid-1960's Mark VI baritone (I was a bari player) with range to low Bb. This was the almost perfect horn: beautiful tone, outstanding intonation and decent keywork. It just needed a low A. However, when I played this horn, it was right before the new Keilwerth SX90 came out and before the Yanagisawa 991 came out. And THESE might be blown out of the water by the Selmer S80 Series III bari -- if Selmer ever gets around to releasing it. I can scarcely imagine a horn that I have to adjust less on to play than that Mark VI. That would be really kewl.

In my opinion, we all just want a horn that works great and that we don't have to fight to play in tune. Who cares about the make/model?
 
Of course, each of us has a different point at which we have to say "I can't be tying this much money up for this long with no certainty that I will get a return on my 'investment'."
The events transpired in past year has completely cured my guilt feelings of having too many horns...OK, that was off-topic but I just couldn't help it after looking at my 401K.
 
Technically you are right, but it's my joke and I'll tell it anyway I like. So there.


John
 
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