Well here's a fantastic old alto saxophone made by Buescher for "Place Musical Instrument Co RI" sometime in the 1920s.
This is basically a Buescher True Tone, so you can be sure this is a sweet, sweet player.
Looks like this was lacquered at some point, I won't say "re-lacquer" but more like "first lacquer". In the 1920's horns weren't lacquered, they were bare brass or silver or gold plated. It wasn't until the 30s and later that lacquer became a common option by the major manufacturers. So when I say "first lacquer" I mean this horn was certainly a bare brass instrument that at some point someone had lacquered. The patina is awesome, this horn looks lovely.
I did a full servicing on this horn, tear down and clean, keys and rods cleaned, assembled and replaced any bad pads, replaced any worn or missing adjustment materials, fixed worn key work/mechanism slop, neck fitting, full adjustment/regulation..........the end result being a very nice playing vintage horn that is playing on mostly older pads.
This was one of those horns where I could probably argue it needs a full repad, but, most of the pads were still sealing that I just replaced the worst ones. The thing is, these old stencil horns are so undervalued that it makes zero sense to overhaul/repad unless someone is paying me for it. So in this case I brought back from the dead a non playing horn and will be finding a new home for it. I'm sure someone will very happy!
Some things to note about this horn: it has some of the classic 1920's features like pearl button G# key touchpiece, forked Eb (this one came sprung shut), and G# trill key.
Also note, like many horns from this era and especially stencils, there is no aux front F key.
I love everything about this horn and it was a true pleasure to be of service to it.
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