A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a fellow who had recently purchased a René Dumont alto saxophone. Through the course of his research into the brand, he happened across my website.
Also through the course of his research, this new René Dumont owner happened to come across this vintage advertisement for the brand in a 1963 copy of a magazine aimed at music educators. Bob was kind enough to share the ad with me, and I thought it was worth sharing here.
I get a lot of visitors on my site looking for information on Dörfler & Jörka saxophones, and this is the first vintage ad that I have seen that advertises one of their stencils. What’s fascinating here is not only the price—which according to The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is $1902.63 US in 2010 dollars—but also who the brand is targeting.
Source: Music Educators Journal, Nov-Dec, 1963
It is worth noting that the other ads contained in the 5 pages of this magazine that were sent to me, appear to be squarely aimed at high school and university teachers. There are ads for marching band uniforms featuring Penn State, a wide variety of brasswind mutes by Leblanc, and chart rentals for musicals.
All these other ads leave me with the impression that the René Dumont saxes were aimed at the intermediate level of player, rather than beginner.
I hope this is just the first of many more D&J stencil brand ads to be found. It would be interesting to see if we can uncover a trend in who these saxophones were marketed towards.
I have a Rene Dumont Concert Paris Tenor Made in France….I am guessing by Pierret. I bought it about 20 years ago. Has really good laquer still and I put in new pads but never got them seated correctly. I have three other tenors I play mostly. The Rene Dumont I have is a really beautiful horn and was wondering if rare, because I never see to many of them on internet. I cannot find the serial number on it and was hoping someone might know where.
Hi Ken. Thanks for the note.
I would need to see some photos of the horn before I can maybe tell you anything concrete about the horn.
Send me some photos. They need to be clear, large, and cover ALL parts of the horn. Take as many emails as you need.
Send them to: bassic.sax.info@gmail.com
I was just doing some research on Rene Dumont after buying a Rene Dumont tenor saxophone mouthpiece. The piece was obviously a Riffault blank, stamped with “France”, and having the standard Riffault “R3” facing. I found several references to Rene Dumont saxophones, some clarinets (wood and metal), several flutes, even an accordion reference. It began to sound like my blog about Sorkin Music, where a U.S. distributor was sourcing instruments from Europe and the U.S. and having their proprietary trade name stenciled on the instruments. Then, I found who used the trade name Rene Dumont in the U.S. https://books.google.com/books?id=O36Ro9MSkccC&pg=RA1-PA241&lpg=RA1-PA241&dq=%22rene+dumont%22+accordian&source=bl&ots=X4WG0K4Qkq&sig=5ZN8fSTebMmS_qrX4-gIobyc9_Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LW-YVKulC8HsoASQ1IDABQ&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22rene%20dumont%22%20accordian&f=false at page 241.
If St. Louis Music was operating like Sorkin and selling a variety of U.S./Eoropean sourced instruments to schools and music stores, a Rene Dumont saxophone might be from several different manufacturers over the years. Also if like Sorkin they sourced from reputable European makers, there is no reason to shy away from these horns.
Mark
Forgot to comment about the Rene Dumont mouthpiece. It is one of Riffault’s less common chambers, although the exterior is fairly standard vintage hard rubber. The chamber has straight sidewalls like a Brilhart, but unlike a Brilhart with its sharp injection-molded contours, the Rene Dumont is smoothly sculpted. One odd thing is that it is one of those tenor pieces (like the identical vintage Jean Martin) that has a really narrow shank opening. Kind of difficult to get it very far on the cork. But it still tunes okay because the chamber is quite small. It has a nice focused French sound for a Dutch saxophone of German heritage?
Mark
Thank you very much for this link Mark! This is very interesting information. We know that by far and away the bulk of the Rene Dumont saxophones were made by Dörfler & Jörka (D&J). However, I have also come across a number of Rene Dumont saxes that were made by the French company Pierret.
Neither company made bad saxophones. Far from it in fact. Both D&J and Pierret made very fine saxophones, and both can be picked up for very litte $ in today’s economy. They can in fact be a good buy if one is looking for a decent vintage horn, at a very reasonable price.
I Have a Renee Dumont tenor saxophone and it played very well from day one. When I noticed it was made in West Germany I snatched it up. Once I put a little oil in the moving parts and warm the horn up it played like a champ. I would recommend someone buy these horns if they have the chance. They play well and they sound good. I paid 325.
Hi Mike. Welcome to my site.
Yes, the German-made Rene Dumonts would be a decent horn, since they were made by Dörfler & Jörka (D&J). These horns were copies of the Keilwerth’s The New King model, and tone-wise, are nearly impossible to tell apart from their JK counterparts.
JK and D&J have a very complex history. The link I provided above gives you more information about the company if you would like to know more about the origins of your saxophones. I do like my D&J-made DeVillers a lot, and find it nearly impossible to tell the difference between it and the Toneking I have from JK.