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factories before 1975, “student,” “intermediate,” and “professional” alike. Those first-generation Low Pitch horns were the “common ancestors” for 95% of the saxophones that came out of U.S. I would put the beginning cutoff for Conn and Buescher with their 1914 patents, and the beginning for Martin with their 1918 patents. About the same time, most US manufacturers developed a new line of horns to compete for the growing marching band, concert band, saxophone-only band, and home markets. Though many saxophones were made in the 1800s, for our purposes, I count the beginning of the vintage era from the time US sax manufacturers started focusing on “low pitch” (A=440) horns for the US market.
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And if - in spite of the relatively low cost of most used and vintage student saxophones - you’re making a decision that is going to cost you “real money,” be sure to “get a second opinion” about any content that would bear on your decision. So while the content is true to the best of my knowledge, I want to hear about any corrections, additions, or clarifications, you can provide.
![pan american alto saxophone sax 1930 pan american alto saxophone sax 1930](https://saximax.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/pan-american-04.jpg)
That said, manufacturers have a way of glossing over details that would detract from their current “story,” and even experts make mistakes, or unintentionally repeat misinformation from other sources where there are gaps in their own knowledge. Note: All of the content of this page is cobbled together from multiple sources, including eyewitness accounts, hands-on experience, manufacturer histories, etc. With those bits of widely-published misinformation out of the way, let’s take a look a the history of “student” horns between 19, as a way of explaining why some are worth acquiring and some might be worth avoiding unless you know what you’re doing. Worse yet, quite a few were built in Mexico with poorly-trained workers and poorer-quality materials (see below). It is based on Conn’s old student-line Pan American horns, which were built to entirely different specs.
Pan american alto saxophone sax 1930 pro#
Pan american alto saxophone sax 1930 professional#
Because vintage professional horns draw so much attention and sometimes seem to demand so much investment, we completed a big article to help readers evaluate the pros and cons of various vintage pro horns from different manufacturers and from different eras.īut for every question we see about some desirable vintage horn, we see at least one question from someone who’s thinking about paying too much money for a far less desirable student horn, because some vendor claimed that it was “almost as good.” So this article, which will be much briefer, will cover some of the histories and some of the “gotcha’s” of buying vintage student horns.īy the way, we’re going to skip ahead briefly to answer the two most frequently asked questions about vintage student horns: Readers will know that we’ve spent a lot of time trying to help vintage horn shoppers find appropriate horns for appropriate cash outlays.