I very rarely get anything, other than bills, in the mail. So it was very unusual that I was waiting for not 1, but for 2 saxophone-related resources, at the same time. Yesterday I received a notice in my mail box, that both were available for pick up at my local post office.
The first is a book that was written by my colleague, Uwe Ladwig. Since 2004, Uwe has been researching and writing about saxophones for the German music journal, Sonic: sax & brass. This research material is what he used as a foundation for his new book, Saxofone: Ein Kompendium.
Source: oldtime-saxophone.de
I’ll review more of the book at a later date, but for now it’s enough to say: Wow! This is a fabulous resource. Uwe’s publishers should really translate this into English.
The second resource was sent to me by one of the people who regularly reads my site. Years ago he received a catalogue from the Julius Keilwerth company.
Although the hard copy is quite worn, and a little tattered, none of the information is missing. While scanning and Photoshopping it, I should be able to restore most of it.
This JK catalogue appears to be from the late 1970s. With it came a separate, 1979 price list (in DMs), for JK’s full line of products. These 2 items are very interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, I did not know that JK offered a full line of wind instruments. Secondly, the prices of the instruments when they were first sold, was intriguing.
IIRC, the exchange rate was somewhere around 1:2 at the time. In 1981, I remember exchanging money, and 1 Deutsch Mark, got me 2 Canadian Dollars. That puts a very interesting spin on the prices of saxophones at the time.
We’ve always known that Julius Keilwerth horns were not inexpensive instruments. This price list shows just how much they would have cost to buy. JKs were in Selmer’s price range alright. Maybe even higher, depending on the exchange rate at the time.
