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.
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.