Old Holton Revelation alto sax

Here's a neat old sax by Frank Holton,  the serial # dates this to 1910 which seems quite old for a horn with same side bell keys,  most pre world war II saxophones I see have the split key design,  B and Bb are on different sides of the bell.
Also this horn doesn't have a Bis key!
And not uncommon for the era there is no front F.
No forked Eb which WAS common for this era!
This horn played well on mostly VERY old pads......they not only didn't have resonators they didn't have rivets either! I replaced a few bad pads to get the horn playing and was very impressed with its sound.
Seems at some point the horn was re-lacquered,  and done very well! 
The model is Revelation. 
Thumbs up!

Very cool French clarinet

I recently had the pleasure of restoring this wonderful old Bb clarinet that was sold with the Woodwind Co NY name on it.
For those of you familiar with woodwind instruments the name Woodwind Co will not be new,  they are mostly known for hard rubber mouthpieces that are made from excellent high quality blanks,  especially the old "Steel Ebonite" types.
But they had instruments made for them too,  and this clarinet was in fact made by some small firm in France.   I'm not sure who made this,  certainly not Malerne (a maker of many stencils),  but I can say it is of high quality!
I've had many clarinets through the shop this year and this one is up there with the best,  even compared to top names like Selmer.
The wood is nice, tight grained, and crack free.
The key work is well wrought and comfortable.
It plays well in tune and has a nice quality to its sound,  excellent really.
And of course it comes with the original matching Woodwind Co mouthpiece,  this one having the G7 facing.
So there you have it folks,  if you see one these come up for sale at a yard sale or Ebay,  don't hesitate to buy,  they are great clarinets,  and honestly a real bargain for what they sell for. 

Penzel Mueller Bel Canto clarinet

Here's another good old clarinet to come through the shop.
This one was made by Penzel Mueller and is marked Bel Canto,  apparently a lower end offering by them but its hard to tell,  the quality is so good!
I had to replace all the pads on this clarinet.  In the end it came out being a nice one!  The keywork is well made and feels good,  the tone is classic.   I'm not sure I've ever had a Penzel Mueller clarinet in my hands that wasn't at least decent.   Stay tuned in the next few months for another Penzel,  a "Professional" model that is currently in the lineup (after quite a few other projects!).
Although this was "low end" for Penzel Mueller I would consider this solidly an intermediate instrument.

Yamaha/Vito alto sax

Well here's a post about a horn that really isn't all that uncommon, but,  in a world of increasingly inferior instruments being produced, bought, and sold,  these horns stand out as excellent values for the student musician. 
This is a Vito alto that was produced by Yamaha,  who made horns for Vito for a number of years.   In essence this is identical to the YAS-23 model and as anyone will tell you,  these horns rock.  I'm constantly amazed by the quality of these Yamaha instruments.   This one needed basic servicing,   and yes,  certainly shows wear from age,  but is mechanically sound and played top to bottom!  I sold this to someone who was renting an instrument for their child,  paying WAY too much for an instrument that was/never will be as good as something like this.
I'm still very much a "vintage" instrument person but I am very motivated to also get quality used instruments in to the hands of students. 

Dukoff tenor mouthpiece!

Well here's a rare treat,  a Bobby Dukoff Hollywood tenor sax mouthpiece!

This is the first one of these through my hands.   The story is a common one,  I was buying a horn off someone and guess what came with it?  Well you know the answer to that.  In this case I was picking up a very old Holton Revelation alto...........the mouthpiece on the neck was none other than this Dukoff tenor piece.   I wasn't really fully aware of its value until I asked around.   Much to my surprise this baby sold for a nice some of money to someone who is VERY happy with it!  When this came through the shop I didn't have a good working tenor around so unfortunately I can't really attest to its playing qualities.  Next time!

Getzen Elkhorn tenor sax

Here's another interesting tenor saxophone to come through the shop recently.

It's marked with the Getzen Elkhorn name, but,  not actually made by Getzen.   In this case the company only manufactured brass instruments and they farmed out woodwinds to other companies,  this tenor saxophone was certainly made in Italy probably by Orsi.

I had another old Italian tenor through the shop in the last year,   they're well built, sturdy,  decent playing horns.  This one was actually pretty darn clean,  the original lacquer was well maintained and there were only a few small dings.   I believe there was one not so neat post re-solder on the low end,  and the neck showed the most damage although was fully functional. 
The pads were all old, but, still sealing and I was able to just do a basic once over on the horn before giving it my stamp of approval. 

Another plus for this horn is that it came with a nice old French hard rubber mouthpiece.   It was one of the types marked on France on the side of the table,  these are often quite good.

These are good horns for the money!