Do any of you own a Q.R.S. Playasax in need of repair? Has anyone ever had to do a repair on one? Or tried to find a shop to do a repair?
Source: adman633
I received an email the other day from a woman who owns one of these vintage saxophone-shaped “things”. It had been bought for her brother when he was young, (he passed away in the early 1930s). Unfortunately, this family heirloom is in need of a repair and likely a replacement part.
While searching the ‘Net she found my site and hoped that I could offer up some repair shop suggestions. I had to admit that this is not really my area of expertise, but that I would see if someone who happened across my site, might know of someone who does repairs on these Q.R.S Playasax, wind-up saxophones.
The Q.R.S. Playasax was not built as a serious musical instrument, but rather for amusement. It was originally patented in 1930, and sold, pre-patent, for $3.75 in 1929, under the name The Automatic Saxophone. According to the United States Department of Labor’s Inflation Calculator, that would be $50.91 in 2013.
Source: adman633
Source: adman633
I did some searching on the Internet, but sadly didn’t really come up with much information about Q.R.S. Playasax repairs. The most informative site is the Mechanical Music Digest. Using their Archives tab, I came up with 18 topics for Play-A-Sax, and 27 for Playasax. Unfortunately from what I could see, these threads dealt with DIY repairs, and none discussed any shops that repaired the little wind-up sax.
I suspect if the woman lived in Europe, her repair options might be greater, but since she is in the US, the best advice I could offer up would be the following:
- Take the Q.R.S. Playasax to a watchmaker. A watchmaker is used to dealing with the springs and gears found in wind-up instruments like this.
- If parts are needed, another Q.R.S. Playasax would likely have to be bought. Naturally it would have to have the parts that are broken in the original, intact. Fortunately Q.R.S. Playasax seem to pop up on eBay quite regularly.
- An email to the Mechanical Music Digest might be helpful. Perhaps the Publisher or Editor might have some information on who does Q.R.S. Playasax repairs.
- Ask yourself: Why are you going to fix it? You will likely never recoup the cost of the repairs. If you are doing it with an eye to selling it, don’t bother. If on the other hand, you are doing it to preserve a part of your family’s history, then the repair might be worth the cost. Only you can decide that for yourself.
Source: adman633
If anyone has any input on this, I’d love to hear it. If you’ve had your Q.R.S. Playasax repaired, please chime in with a comment. Let me know who did the work, and where they are located. If you did the work yourself, please let me know how difficult it was to work on this little wind-up toy saxophone.
At this point it would be really interesting to gather stories about these wind-up saxophones, because I know of a number of sax players who have them in their personal collections. Furthermore, over the years I have received quite a few emails about the Q.R.S. Playasax. My hope is that this could become a central repository for an owners exchange of info.
If you are interested in learning more about this unique little wind-up toy sax, I do have a page dedicated to the Q.R.S. Playasax on my website. There you will find some of the patent info, as well as some very pretty examples of these early 20th century saxophone-shaped “things”.
Im trying to find any music roll for sale
Just for the record, QRS was one of the big piano roll companies. Remarkably, they have continued to do business to this day.
I received an email from a fellow named Michael in Australia. This is what he had to say:
I am the person who contacted Helen to begin with. The only thing that is really wrong with this Playasax, is the “cover “over the “spring assembly”.
Hi Helen,
The design drawing reminds me a great deal of a harmonium. I suspect there are more organ repair people in the world than Playasax specialists.
I’d be curious what tunes are available for the rolls. It might be an interesting DIY project to make new rolls of current tunes.
paul
I can not read some of them, they are not in very good shape, especially the boxes but this is the ones I can read.
Silent Night
Annie Laurie
Come all ye faithful
Carry me back to ole Virginia
Turkey in the Straw
Darling Nelly Gray
Best Washer Woman
?Side ? New York
there are ten rolls but that is all i can read and they don’t
have the names on some of them.
Would you consider selling one?