This morning something caught my eye on eBay that got me thinking about the treasures we might find in vintage instrument cases, but never think about… At least I don’t.
A vintage saxophone dealer from the UK, who regularly has some interesting horns for sale BTW, is selling a vintage Keilwerth alto mouthpiece, ligature, and cap. When I saw the price that shresthakimi was asking for this vintage piece, I was rather stunned.
Source: shresthakimi
When I bought my JK-stencilled Jubilee alto last spring, it came with all its original accessories, including the mouthpiece, lig, and cap. However, because I am very satisfied with my alto set-up, I never tried the original mouthpiece. Now shresthakimi has me wondering what this piece might really like.
Here is how he describes his vintage JK piece currently for sale:
Vintage and Rare Julius Keilwerth Alto Sax Mouthpiece
Has company logo stamped and 4 facing
has deep wide chamber with horseshoe shaped -Please see pic
Great piece for early mellow dark tone
also included is a Bronze bottom one- screw ligature + cap
Source: shresthakimi
What is shresthakimi asking for this little bit of vintage, German rubber you ask? Well it can be yours for a cool £250.00—which eBay estimates to be $402.53.
This brings me back to my original point. As a frequent buyer of vintage horns, some come with equally vintage mouthpieces. For the most part I just clean them up and put them away without even trying them out. The couple notable exceptions have been the original mouthpiece that came with my Hohner President tenor, and the Conn Eagle bass/baritone piece that came with my Evette & Schaeffer HP bari.
Now I’m going to have to dig through all the strange, and yes, perhaps even rare, mouthpieces that I have ended up with over the years, and try them out. Who knows, maybe I have a sleeper piece in there that I didn’t even know about.
I’m sure many of you will consider it odd that I haven’t tried out these pieces that came with my horns. Perhaps it is. However, I have literally spent years searching for the sound on all my voices of horns (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass). Now that I have it, I honestly just didn’t have any desire to try other gear.
What about you? When you get a new to you horn, do you try the mouthpiece that comes with it? Or do you just put it away and forget about it?
Update: Well not surprising, this mouthpiece, lig, & cap set did not sell. These are not well known pieces, so a player shelling out over $400 US for one was not all that expected. But hey, you never know what something’s worth until you try. Hope springs eternal and all… 😉
When I got my second C-mel (which I bought because it had a case, mostly — it was cheap and I had a good-playing one already), it came with a literally stinking old mouthpiece that was sulfur yellow in color. After a bit of rubbing, it was revealed to be a normal ebonite mouthpiece that had simply oxidized that badly. I got out a brush and started scrubbing, then rubbed it down in cooking oil to get rid of the rest of the brown color and shine it up a bit.
It didn’t smell any more, but it still stank.
I started investigating, and found that it was most likely a Conn Eagle for C-mel, and worth about $30. This made it fit for alteration. I opened it up quite a bit, then sculpted the rails (as they always get wider when you open up a piece). This process also happened to make it fit tenor reeds quite nicely. It still sounded like I was playing under a duvet, but at least I was able to get some air through the piece.
I ended up providing that piece when I sold the horn on — without the case — a year or so later. I even played the horn with that mouthpiece for the video I made for the sale. I got just as much for the “naked” horn as I had paid for it with the case. It’s just as well, the case can’t date any later than the 1930s as I found a business card of a local (to the original owner) repairman dated 1934! It took substantial reinforcement, two new latches, and a new handle, but the case is at least a good fit. It still smells like dusty old timbers though.
The “extra” that was actually nice was the (apparently original) lyre. It’s much sturdier than the ones made now or even 20-30 years ago, and has two springs, one for each side. It also fits various horns just as well as a modern one does. I had to re-plate the silver but otherwise it was in excellent shape.
And after trying I keep them.
The mpc from my King Zephyr Baritone sounds great on the baritone I bought twenty years later, but was a disaster on the Zephyr.
Maybe I already have the perfect mouthpiece for a saxophone that is build in 2022.
I try all of them!
My Conn 6M come also with a vintage mauthpiece: a white Brilhart, the same than Bird used….. and even some vintage reeds, as the new plastic Selmer Vocaltone Reed, original light oil from Conn, original book manual: “How to take care for your instrument” by Conn, 1943, vintage neck straps and of course, original case.
According to the vintage restorer man, who is servicing the horn right now….”this is a great horn, with even better sound than the Yani 990″….