If you do a search for “saxophone” on eBay, on any given day you will find 20,000+ listings. Make it a worldwide search, and you will get over 45,000. Of those tens of thousands of listings, it’s a good bet that at least a few hundred are going to be for saxophone brooches.
If you’re like anything like me, you’ve never given these mostly tacky, and very often ugly, brooches any thought. You’ve also likely never considered that someone might have obtained a saxophone brooch patent.
Source: eBay.com
Yup, it’s true. While doing some searching in Google Patents yesterday, I happened across this little gem… Pardon the pun. :groan:
There’s a whole world of tackiness waiting to be rediscovered.
In May 1938, Oreste Agnini and Mary Granville submitted their application to the US Patent office. Their application was very short and straightforward, and looked like this:
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that we, Oreste J. Agnini
Mary C. Granville, both citizens of the United design. States, residing, respectively, in Maywood and
Chicago, County of Cook, and State of Illinois,
have invented a new, original, and ornamental
Design for a Brooch or the like, of which the
following is a Specification, reference being had
to the accompanying drawing, forming a part
thereof, and in which
Fig. 1 is a front view; and
Fig. 2 is Side view of a brooch showing our new design.
We claim:
The Ornamental design for a brooch or the like as shown.
Source: Google Patents
Their patent drawing looked like this:
Source: Google Patents
So these anthropomorphic saxophone brooches were worthy of a patent? :scratch: Honestly, I don’t understand it. Had no one designed a saxophone brooch before then? Presumably no one had patented one before then.
This same saxophone brooch patent from 1938, has been referenced in a number of other patent applicants, including one by Armand Arman, who in 1994 was granted a 14 year patent for the following saxophone brooch.
Source: Google Patents
Isn’t that sweet? Two tenors saxophones in love. Now there’s a yard sale, or second-hand shop special, if I ever saw one.
To quote a popular culture professor I had back in my undergrad days: “There’s a whole world of tackiness waiting to be rediscovered.” (She was originally referring to 50s and 60s paraphernalia.) I gotta’ tell you, from where I sit, when it comes to saxophone brooches, truer words have never been spoken.
And I’m certain that you’ve looked for BariSax jewelry, of which there is 1, count em, ONE realistic piece in the world. A damn Low A MK VI.
I’ve checked with a few dealers and they tell me there is nothing else available commercially. Hence, my solution: I’ve obtained a few samples of a game piece from the Simpson’s version of the clue game. One of the weapons is Lisa’s Barisax. Should make an interesting tie-tac/ hat pin. I’m making one for my daughter and one for myself when I get the findings. If I stumble onto another in the future I may have to send it to Helen if she would like one.
Hey, those Future Primitive pieces are really decent pins. They are not in the “mostly tacky, and very often ugly, brooch” category I mention here. I actually framed a set and have them hanging in my foyer. Compare them to a Mark VI, and they are truly very good representations of the horns.
Before Future Primitive discontinued their production years ago, I bought an extra bari and tenor pin. I wear one or the other on my blazers. They never fail to draw comments. Just on Thursday I was wearing my bari pin (yeah, it sucks that it is low A horn, since my VI is a low Bb 😛 ) for my former boss’s retirement party. IIRC, at least 10 people commented on it. (I was wearing a black silk blazer, so the gold plated pin really popped.)