This morning I found this rather rough looking specimen of a Hohner President up for auction on eBay. About the only thing that is remarkable about this sax—other than the damage it has sustained—is the fact that it is the first lacquer model that I’ve seen. Until now I’ve seen either 2 tone or silver plated Presidents.
Source: eBay.com
The seller is not a sax player, therefore apparently can’t shed any light onto this horn’s background, and can only tell us this:
I know nothing about a sax, just picked this up at an estate sale. Took lot of pictures. I do know it needs some repairs and to be refurbished but overall horn looks good. No mouthpiece. Horn reads: Hohner President. On back has Hohner trademark and numbers 6079. At the top reads: GES. – GESCH.
Alrighty then. Let’s take a look at what good means to this seller.
Unfortunately the photos he/she has included are quite small, and not particularly clear, so details are hard to make out. However, there are certain details that are very easy to see.
According to the serial number chart on SaxPics, this tenor—serial # 6079—is circa 1957.
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
It appears to me like the D# trill key has been bent up. It normally is much closer to the body tube like in this photo of tenor 7678.
Just to be sure it wasn’t an optical illusion due to the angle of the photo, I looked at my own tenor, and stood at the same angle that this photo was taken at. The end of the D# trill key did not look like it was bent upward on my sax. This horn has a bent key.
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
In this photo you can see not only is one of the left pinkie cluster keys—it’s the C# key—not attached, but there is some significant neck damage as well.
Source: eBay.com
The upper octave key is broken off midway to the octave key vent. Also, it appears that there is a piece missing at the tenon. It was most likely removed.
Source: eBay.com
Hohner President saxophones had true double socket necks. And as such, their necks fit into the double socket of the body tube, as illustrated in this photo of my tenor 104XX.
In this photo of tenor 7678’s neck, you can see what an original Hohner neck looks like. There is no sleeve on the President’s tenon, whereas on this eBay horn’s neck there is evidence that a sleeve was removed.
This is clearly not the original neck—and let’s not forget its octave key is broken off.
Source: eBay.com
The auction for this Hohner President tenor, which needs the help of a very skilled repair tech—and perhaps a new neck—ends on October 19. At the time of writing there was 1 bid of $24.99 on this sax.
If you’d like to find out more about Hohner saxophones, check out my page about the brand on the main portion of my site. There you’ll also find a link to my Hohner Gallery.
Update: Well this Hohner tenor (or alto with a tenor neck?) did sell despite it being a bit of a train wreck. By auction’s end there were 11 bids on this beater, with the winner paying $123.53 for the privilege of being this Hohner’s new owner. To that person I say: Good luck with that. 😮
I do hope the person got what they paid for, and not a nasty little surprise.
If you are the new owner of this horn, and happen to come across this post, please drop a comment here and let me know what this sax really is. I hope it is a tenor. If you need any info on necks and such, just drop me an email. I’ll do what I can to help you out.
I think is right I thought some didn’t look right the first time I looked at The pictures but I couldn’t put my finger on what If you look at the third picture above where Helen is talking about the broken octave key the diameter of the sax is only slightly larger than the large diameter of the neck on all the tenors I have seen body considerably larger by the time you get to the left thumb rest. Also the distance between the left thumb rest and the right thumb rest is just barely longer than the length of the neck the tenors that I have to compare are noticeably longer in the body that is the sort of proportion I see when I compare a tenor neck with an alto :beat: 😀
This looks to me like a tenor neck force-fit onto an alto body. The proportions are those of an alto — look at the lack of bell flare (until the very end), and the way the bell does not rise very high. This would also explain the tenon damage.
That’s an interesting theory Mal-2. In the shot of horn with the neck in the socket, the neck does look out of proportion, but it could also just be the angle.
I guess someone could always have asked the seller the length of the horn, that would have answered the question for sure. I guess for $123.53 the new owner will soon find out what he/she bought! :devil2:
No matter what they bought, I say “good luck” to finding a replacement neck though. 😮