A Vintage De Villiers Tenor Saxophone

At the beginning of February I saw this interesting, vintage, German saxophone at a local music store. They wanted $400 Cdn for the De Villiers tenor, but I didn’t have a mouthpiece with me at the time, so I couldn’t play test the horn. However just from playing the instrument with my fingers alone, I knew right away that the sax needed some work, and would be leaking.

I looked over the sax very carefully, and even took some photos with my cell phone, because I found the horn rather intriguing. With its rolled tone holes, it looked to me like a Keilwerth stencil.

When I got home I did some research, and came up with only a couple references to the De Villiers name, and they all led back to Just Saxes’ Stencils & Manufacturers page.

According to Just Saxes, De Villiers was one of the names that Dörfler & Jörka (D&J) produced their saxophones under. D&J was founded by 2 former Keilwerth employees, and was located in Neuheim, Germany. D&J saxophones were for all facts and purposes Keilwerth clones: made with identical keywork and hardware. They also played very similarly to the Keilwerths of the same era, and had a similar voice.

With that little bit of information in hand, I started a thread on the Woodwind Forum in the hopes that someone there might know something more about this obscure sax. Sure enough, Pete Hales did recognize the horn. He was able to lead me to Doctor Sax’s website that had some photos of similar horns. Through Kim’s site I was positively able to identify the De Villiers as a Dörfler & Jörka stencil saxophone.

I have since bought the tenor, and have spoken to the repair centre in Vancouver where the horn has to go next week for the warranty work to be done. (A vintage sax bought with a warranty… That’s a first for me, but then I’ve never bought a vintage horn from a music store before either. I should also mention that the store is part of a national chain, and a 90 day warrenty is standard on all used instruments they sell.)

Here are the photos that I’ve taken of my De Villiers since I’ve bought it…

My horn is so far the only one that I’ve seen that has a monotone lacquer finish. The other D&J horns all have lacquer bodies and nickle plated keys. There is one other exception to this. Another SOTW member, hastings68, has a tenor which is engraved with the name Symphonic, which is silver plated.

The other thing that my D&J sax has, which is not shared by its nickle plated-keyed cousins, is real mother of pearl buttons on the key guards. It’s a bit hard to tell on the photos, but it appears that the Symphonic shares that feature as well. The horns with the nickle plated keys had plastic buttons on the key guards.

I’m looking forward to having my Keilwerth clone (can’t really call it a stencil, even though it has a Keilwerth body tube) in proper playing condition. Because I tend to go for a bright sound, this horn will be a nice addition to my tenor family. Even as it plays right now, its Keilwerthesque nature & sound are very evident.