Curved True Tone Soprano Serial #67529 Source: Randy Cole (eBay.ca)
In case you haven’t checked out Saxquest lately, they’ve made a few changes. They’ve moved some of their content over to saxophone.org, and have added new content as well.
Among the new content that they’ve added, is a Buescher factory video from 1924. saxophone.org writes the following about this archival video:
Created in 1924 to showcase American manufacturing following WWI, here you see the Buescher factory at the height of the saxophone craze in America. This rare footage was acquired by the Saxquest Saxophone Museum in 2008 and pieced together from two original 35mm nitrocellulose film reels. The transfer process was done at 2K resolution thus preserving this footage in digital archival form.
True Tone with original white kid leather pads and gold plated Snap-In resos
Serial # 166009 Source: Randy Cole (eBay.com)
I don’t know about you, but watching this gives me a greater appreciation for the workmanship that went into my vintage horns. It is also easy to see how individual horns could have varied from each other, when so much handcraftsmanship went into each horn. It’s a far cry from today, when computerization and mechanization are used in an effort to ensure uniformity.
