Looking For An Olds Super Alto?

There is an interesting vintage saxophone on eBay today. This Olds Super alto, that was found in a barn, is, IMO anyway, an example of one of the prettiest American-made vintage saxophones. Sadly these horns were never mass-produced, and their history remains a bit of an enigma.

Source: octopus_the_13th

Source: octopus_the_13th

The seller did try to unravel some of the horn’s mysterious background. This is what he wrote about the Olds Super alto that he has for sale:

Here we have an AWESOME Alto Saxophone. Appears to be in decent condition other than needing a cleaning and new pads (maybe a recorking) Does not come with any sort of mouthpiece. From the limited information I can find, these are fairly rare. The bell has a ‘tone ring’ and is marked ‘Super Olds – Made by F.E. Olds & Son Los Angeles California U.S.A’ Looks like it is made of Silver-plated brass.

I don’t know much about saxophones, this was a barn find. Definitely needs pads replaced and a good cleaning, other than that nothing appears to be broken, missing, or in need of repair. Although, I could be wrong. All moving parts move freely, all springs have great tension. I imagine this old horn could play amazing with some new pads and a little cleaning!

Here is what little info I could find;

It is an Olds SUPER Model. Here is a history from our SOTW archives:

“The Olds Super Sax history, from a former executive at F.E. Olds & Son.

The Kanstul family runs Kanstul Music, a producer of Brasswinds previously associated with Benge. Zig Kanstul keeps business hours, but other Kanstul’s appear throughout the web site for the company. He started his career working for FE Olds in the early 50’s as a technician reaching the top of the company and overseeing it’s success and decline. Kanstul Music has an amazing history of its own.

An alternate explanation of the Olds Super saxes. According to Mr Kanstul the Olds Super sax was made in very numbers run just before the start of WWII in the Los Angeles F.E Olds Plan. The company hired a former Martin Sax employee who had moved to the LA area(I failed to note his name during our discussion) As a result of this hire Olds developed the Olds Super sax models intended for the professional market. This was part of the companies evolving product line.

The instruments were produced in small numbers untill WWII interrupted civilian production. Mr Kanstul thought less than 2000 were produced, something beyond a prototype run, and enough to build interest in the new line. Full production wasn’t ever achieved, the tooling was put in storage. The serial numbers reflect the pre-production nature of the Olds Super line. The instruments were not produced for the WWII effort, or under government contract, but they were new west coast instruments at the beginning of the war.

This is pretty much in line with commonly held beliefs about these horns: that they were indeed made by Olds, and not stencilled by another company like Pierret (who made many of their horns for them), or Martin (who had similar tone holes to the Olds Super).

The Olds Super had soldered tone holes…

Source: octopus_the_13th

that also appear to be bevelled.

Source: octopus_the_13th

The horns also has a left thumb rest and octave lever that strongly resembled that of Hammerschmidt’s Klingsor saxophones…

Source: octopus_the_13th

Unfortunately many of the auction photos aren’t the greatest. If you’re interested in seeing what a totally restored Olds Super alto saxophone looks like, check out this one in my gallery. It was for sale a couple of years ago in Japan. On that horn you can see most of the Olds Super’s features.

Here are the remaining photos of the Olds Super alto currently up for auction…

Source: octopus_the_13th

If this diamond in the rough appeals to you, you only have a couple of days left to get your bid in. The auction for this Olds Super alto ends on June 28. At the time of writing there were 12 bids on the horn, with the high bid being $350.00.

I for one will be curious to see how high this auction is going to go. I must admit I had a bit of a twitchy finger. I almost bid, but then I thought about it a bit more. I’ve got a lot of altos, and I’m not much of an alto player. Now had this been a tenor, I know my G.A.S. would have likely gotten the better of me. :devil2: