It’s been a while since I’ve seen a pretty, vintage bass on eBay, but this horn broke the dry spell. Currently an eBay store has a silver plated, Conn bass saxophone from 1906, up for auction.
Source: eBay.com
The seller simple describes the vintage bass like this:
Up for auction today is a 1906 Conn Wonder Bb low pitch Bass Saxophone . The sax comes with a case and mouthpiece and is in very good condition and playable. It does have a few old repairs and a ding or two but all in all a great sax!
Obviously they’ve recently polished the old girl prior to listing her. Note that this one doesn’t have gold wash in the bell.
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
As the seller mentioned, the horn has some dents, which are pretty commonly found in vintage bass saxophones.
Source: eBay.com
You’ll notice on these photos, that the sax doesn’t have mother of pearl on the keys. The keys are just bare metal. This really is an old school vintage sax.
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
Despite this however, the sax is a low pitched model. In other words, you can use it in today’s ensembles.
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
The seller does mention that the bass has had some repairs in the past. This appears to be the Eb keyguard that has been resoldered.
Source: eBay.com
The pads look very old to me. I suspect it is due for a repadding.
Source: eBay.com
This Conn bass comes with its original case.
Source: eBay.com
All in all, this vintage Conn appears to be in surprisingly good condition when you consider that it is over 100 years old. There is little evidence, at least visible in these photos, of repair work. If I were buying the sax, I would definitely budget for a restoration (an overhaul in some people’s language), and a new case though.
The auction for this vintage Conn bass sax runs until November 27. The Buy It Now price is $7,500. At the time of writing, there were no offers on this horn yet.
Update: This very pretty looking bass sold for for $4,000.
Update: The seller had dropped the Buy It Now price on this lovely looking Conn bass. It is now $5,000.
One thing about playing these old Conns (or any other bass saxophone with metal fingerings like this) is that when you play a parade on New Year’s Day in Philly, your fingers become stuck to the horn. I’ve been using chapstick to prevent this sticking on the horn, and it’s worked for me.
Another hint don’t use a metal mouthpiece marching down NYD either. If you don’t blow through the horn for a while, it’s like sticking your tongue to an icy flagpole. So I held my mouth there for a couple minutes while everyone got a laugh.
I know I shouldn’t be laughing, but I can’t help it. 😆 😆 That’s really too funny!!
Since I live on the West Coast again, I am quickly forgetting my 8 1/2 years on the East Coast where that would have happened. But since my marching days were behind me, I never had to worry about that.
The rock band I worked with did play a couple of outdoor shows for the Canada Winter Games though. The temperature was about 14 F. My metal Dukoff was a bitch to work with. Luckily it didn’t stick to my mouth too badly. Tuning was really the bigger problem, as I was constantly battling being flat, while the guitar player was constantly going sharp.