A Dörfler & Jörka Impala Tenor Up For Auction
A Dörfler & Jörka Impala Tenor Up For Auction

A Dörfler & Jörka Impala Tenor Up For Auction

This entry is part 5 of 20 in the series Dörfler & Jörka Saxophones

A few weeks ago German sax tech Uwe Ladwig informed me that he had stumbled across yet another stencil name for Dörfler & Jörka saxophones. Like the brand name Corvair, this sax too shared its name with an American car: Impala.

This morning I was checking out the German eBay site and I happened to come across one of these D&J-made Impala saxophones. This silver plated tenor is in desperate need of an overhaul, and has clearly not been played for quite some time.

     Source: eBay.de

The seller describes the sax like this:

(I’ll give you the original German because it’s short, and then the translated version)

TENOR SAXOPHON IMPALA

Marke: “IMPALA”

gemarkt: Nr. 16376 – Made in Western Gemany

L. 83cm

ohne Koffer

ungeprüft und mit Spuren der Zeit, müsste überholt und hergerichtet werden, ansonst ordentlicher original Zustand

The translated version goes like this:

Tenor Saxophone Impala

Brand Name: “Impala”

Marked: No. 16376 – Made in Western German.

83 cm Long

No Case

Has not been tested, and shows its age. It will need an overhaul, but otherwise decent original condition.

     Source: eBay.de

     Source: eBay.de

I don’t imagine that green growth like this would be on the keys if the sax was being played regularly. 😮

     Source: eBay.de

     Source: eBay.de

The decorative pearl is missing on the low C key guard.

     Source: eBay.de

I wonder why the stamping Made In Western Germany is so worn looking. Even the numbers look a bit hinky.

Although admittedly the stamping on the back of my lacquered D&J De Villiers isn’t fabulous either, which had lead to someone who only had seen the pictures on-line to speculate that the horn might be a relac. It isn’t.

Since then I’ve noticed this to be a pattern on other D&J horns. Here is the stamping on an Artist #300 alto, on a Clinton alto, a René Dumont Tenor, and finally on a Voss Tenor.

The engraving on this Impala appears to be original—as it does on all the saxes from my D&J Gallery that I’ve linked to above—so perhaps the flaw lies in however D&J applied the stamping on the back of their body tubes.

     Source: eBay.de

     Source: eBay.de

This is quite possibly the original ligature and cap—and perhaps even mouthpiece—that came with the horn. A Roxy alto that sold on eBay in October ’09 had the same cap and lig. It came with its original accessories.

     Source: eBay.de

The original D&J neck tightening screw has been replaced at some point in time. The round thumb screw is gone, and a conventional one is now in its place.

     Source: eBay.de

The private auction for this Dörfler & Jörka Impala Tenor runs until August 26. At the time of writing there were 33 bids on the horn, with the high bid being €181.00. XE.com tells me that that’s $229.40 US at this precise moment in time.

…this is just my blog. My “real” website is www.bassic-sax.info. If you’re looking for sax info, you should check it out too.There’s lots there!

Series NavigationAnother Dörfler & Jörka Stencil Name IdentifiedVintage Gebr. Alexander Mainz Alto On eBay

One comment

  1. Update: Well this Impala sold quite easily. By the time the auction ended there had been 42 offers on this D&J stencil sax. The winning bid was EU 252.00, which XE.com says is currently $324.95 US. That is a good price.

    I’m just surprised at how much action this horn received. It’s not a Keilwerth. It’s not even a Keilwerth stencil. It was made by a small saxophone company that produced Keilwerth clones. Weird. It’s not like there isn’t beautiful horns to pick up in Europe. I guess there are just not many cheap ones.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 192 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Verified by MonsterInsights