I am so incredibly relieved to say that after 7 years of research; cataloguing of hundreds of H. Couf saxophones; viewing & reviewing thousands of Couf saxophone images multiple times; carefully charting Couf model changes of their production cycles; collating all this data; and finally spending most of the summer of 2025 writing up all the findings, I am DONE!
Two days ago I published the totally updated, and completely redesigned H. Couf main page on the Bassic Sax website. There was A LOT to update.
If you were familiar with the old Couf page, all you will likely recognize are some of the photos. Much of the information is new, since it is based on the data gleaned from the Excel spreadsheets.
SATB & BB Superba I & II each had their own workbook page and datapoints. This means 10 Excel spreadsheets, and nearly 300 data points in total. Yup, it’s a lot.
All totalled, the H. Couf section now contains 6 sections; with a combined total of 17 pages, illustrated with hundreds of coloured images—many arranged in galleries.
H. Couf main page Couf Sopranos Couf Altos Couf Tenors Couf Baritones Couf Bass
At this point I absolutely have to thank the guys who own some of the BEST vintage saxophones shops around. This work would not have been possible without their generosity and willingness to help.
Brilliant and clear images are vital in identifying the characteristics and features of these amazing horns built by the Julius Keilwerth company for H. Couf. Thanks to Brian at Get A Sax, Paul from PM Woodwind, Roberto from Robertos Winds, Mark from USA Horn, as well as Chadd from World Wide Sax. With their help I was able to not only identify 20+ datapoints on models, but also when those datapoints changed over the models’ production cycle.
Brian, Paul, Roberto, Mark, Chadd, you guys are rock stars in the vintage sax world. Thank you for your help. You are truly among some of the best colleagues a person can have in the saxophone world!
Another colleague of mine who I owe a huge thank you to is of course Uwe Ladwig. Uwe provided me with his original German materials and allowed me to translate them into English. Danke Uwe!
And of course, to my Woodwind Forum Admin colleague, Steve Sklar, thank you. You started to H. Couf research years before I came along. Thanks for giving me your resource materials so I could ride on your coattails!
