My new sax player friend Kevin, and I got together a couple of days ago. Kevin is the one who bought that mysterious La Fleur alto—that at first blush looked liked a Hammerschmidt—that strongly resembles the English-made Hüttl tenor that was sold on eBay a few years ago.
When Kevin and I got together on Tuesday, I took some photos of this strange little sax.
Kevin is in the process of rebuilding the horn. He is still awaiting some pads, so that is why you will notice in these photos that some of the screws are not tightened down all the way.
If you’re familiar with the photos I normally take, you’ll notice that these are not quite of the same quality. I was suffering from some serious tremors on Tuesday. And although my camera is a very good one, and can compensate for a lot, there is only so much that digital, anti-shake technology is able to overcome.
In the next couple of photos what’s obvious is that this sax has no front F key.
Notice the nail file G#.
For the left palm keys, Kevin carved these custom risers out of cork. They are really nice, and do the job extremely well.
The next 2 pics give you a good view of the rolled tone holes that this horn has.
This shot gives you a good view of the left pinkie cluster.
Note the straight edge on the right side of the octave lever. I don’t remember seeing a sax with that shape of lever before.
Here is a good picture of Kevin’s carved key risers.
Although it’s hard to tell in these photos, the tone holes for the palm keys are the smallest I have ever seen on an alto. They are only ¾’s of the size, or perhaps less, of those of my Hammerschmidt.
The body tube is extremely small in diameter. This had led to a number of people wondering if this was perhaps a high pitched horn. However, the sax has been restored enough now to be playable. When I played it up against a tuner the other day, it definitely tuned to A=440. So it is indeed a low pitched sax.
Here you can clearly see that this sax only has 1 octave vent in the the body tube.
In the following photo you can see the number 3A stamped on the neck socket. This 3A is also stamped on the neck itself.
Although the sax is stamped Made In England, I have my doubts. I wonder if it wasn’t sent to England in pieces, and just assembled there to avoid tariffs.
Or, another possibility is that a company in England bought the body tubes from a manufacturer, and just added their own keys. But which saxophone manufacturer made saxophones with very narrow body tubes, and rolled tone holes?
This ridging as a neck guard is something we’ve seen before in Hammerschmidts and Kohlerts.
Here you can see the 3A stamped on the front of the neck.
I don’t know what this # 21 means. I can’t imagine that it’s the serial number. However, it is a safe bet that this is a Varsity model La Fleur alto sax by J.R. Lafleur & Sons. After carefully looking at this bell engraving, I’m thinking we’ve had the spelling of the company name wrong for months now.
So this horn remains somewhat of an enigma. That’s why I’ve posted these pictures here—in hopes that someone might stumble across them and recognize this sax for what it really is. That’s what happened with my Hüttl. It took a few years, but I discovered that what I had was really a rare Hammerschmidt saxophone. Perhaps we can unravel the mystery of Kevin’s sax for him in much the same way.
I am glued to this computer,it is my obsession to find the Varsity pedigree.A lot of archived thread info can be found on web with links to full threads. :beat:
Patience Grasshopper. 😉
It took me a few years to find out what my Hüttl really was. You’re way ahead of the game. I suspect that the Czech, Keilwerth connection is on the money.
What I find most frustrating is that since SOTW’s upgrade to the new forum platform, the search feature is somewhat buggy. Although there are some fixes that have been introduced through patches, my understanding is that there are some problems that have not been corrected. When a forum is as big as SOTW is, not having a search feature that works correctly is a major pain in the ass.
I have a LAFLUER Sax has none of the markings of the above I think the one pictured has been tampered with. I have had mine 27 years on the front of the horn it just says ‘Imported by Boosey & Hawkes London foriegn’. mine is still in as new condition and has a beutiful tone to it.
Hello Steve. Welcome to my site.
That’s really interesting that you have a horn similar to this. Does the key work look the same?
I have seen a lot of Boosey & Hawkes horns, but a great deal of them have been made by Amati. This one has been a real mystery, because the key work is so different.
When you say that you believe it may have been tampered with, what do mean? Would you be able to send me some photos of your sax? If you could, I would be very grateful. You can send any photos you have to my gmail account. I set it up specifically to get photos because it allows for large attachment sizes.
Thank you for stopping by Steve. It would be great to be able to compare another horn to this little mystery alto.
Warm regards,
Helen
Actually, oversaxed man is Kevin. How he dug up that thread is amazing. :scratch:
That information (the Czech, Keilwerth pedigree) goes along with what Pete Hales said to me in an email after he looked at all these photos. He is wanting some more octave keys shots that I have before coming to any firmer conclusions.
I hadn’t emailed Kevin with Pete’s info yet, because I’m too far behind in about a million things.
Thanks Mal. I haven’t been keeping up with SOTW. It’s too big now. I liked it much better when you find the posts that were of interest to you. Now it’s like spinning a roulette wheel and seeing what comes up.
I found a SOTW thread (and an active one at that!) talking about Varsity tenors. Maybe some information there will be of assistance.
The neck brace is not totally unlike that of a Buescher True Tone from the 20’s or 30’s either — these were nicknamed the “man in the moon” brace.
I’m sure there is no connection from a manufacturing standpoint, but there’s an aesthetic kinship of sorts.
Thank you Mal!
I was trying desperately to remember which American manufacturer made a brace like that. I think it was you you mentioned it before. But I must admit, I was pretty brain dead this morning, and it was all I could do to get the photos cropped and de-blurred as much as possible.
I did quickly glance through the previous comments on this horn, but couldn’t find any reference. However, I just now remembered that discussion about this sax was spread over a couple of different pages–now 3. I probably just checked on the wrong one.
What was the Scarecrow’s song on the Wizard Of Oz? Oh ya, I remember now: If I Only Had A Brain. That applies in my case right now! 😮
Anyways, I agree that it’s doubtful that there’s any Buescher connection to this horn at all. Although, you never know… I did ping Pete Hales so that he can take another look at it now that we’ve got more pics of it. Perhaps he’ll have some more insights.