This morning I happened to come across yet another Dörfler & Jörka stencil name that hadn’t been attributed to them before. A seller from the UK currently has a tenor saxophone listed which is engraved:
Original
Hopf
T
Classic
Source: eBay.com
No amount of Googling could get me any definitive information on what company named Hopf, might have ordered stencil saxophones from Dörfler & Jörka. There is a Hopf guitar company in Germany that has been a family run business for 300 years. They currently also sell all the various voices of recorders, so perhaps in the 1950s the company had a brief foray into saxophones?
In any event, this silver plated D&J-made sax appears to be in decent condition, and comes with a relatively new contoured case—which is much more protective than the original one ever was. (Trust me. I speak from experience here.)
This is what the seller writes about this vintage Keilwerth, clone horn:
1950’S VINTAGE TENOR SAX. ORIGINAL SILVER LACQUER.
NAMED AS A HOPF CLASSIC, SERIAL NO. 8747, MADE IN GERMANY.
RECENTLY OVERHAULED AT WOODWIND EXCHANGE, BRADFORD.
THOUGHT TO BE A DORFLER & JORKA DESIGN BASED ON THE KEILWERTH NEW KING.
NO DENTS BUT FEW SLIGHT PENCIL POINT DINGS.
BLOWS IN THAT DARK, SOLID KEILWERTH TONE.
COMES WITH HARNESS, HR MPC, REEDS, SHAPED CASE AND STAND
In this photo you can see the D&J thumb screw used to hold the neck in the socket. This automatically tells us with 95% certainty what we’re looking at.
Source: eBay.com
Here you can see the large mother of pearl buttons that decorate the key guards. That together with the key guard and key shapes, add another 2% to our total of surety that this is indeed a D&J horn.
Compare the photo below to that of my De Villiers. Other than mine being a lacquer horn, there are virtually no differences. (The connecting brace between the low B and Bb keys is the only visible difference.)
Source: eBay.com
The metal clothes guard and the shape of the right thumb hook adds yet another 2% to our total, so we’re now at 99% certainty that this is a Dörfler & Jörka saxophone. Here is this same section on my D&J-made De Villiers.
Although it’s a little tough to make out in this photo, the left thumb rest is mother of pearl, and the octave lever is tear dropped shaped. This is what it looks like. That’s our last percent. We can now say with 100% certainty that this is indeed a D&J horn.
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
Source: eBay.com
If you are interested in reading more about Dörfler & Jörka saxophones, and their long, and rather very complicated history with J. Keilwerth, check out the D&J page on the main portion of my site. I just updated the page 2 days ago, and there are now more comparative photos there, as well as some new information.
The auction for this particular D&J tenor runs until March 26. Bids are to start at £550.00—which eBay estimates to be $893.48 US. At the time of writing no one had bid on this vintage Hopf tenor yet.
Just for statistics, after six years there is a Hopf alto on ebay:
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Alt-Saxophone-Vintage-/232256759571?hash=item361394e713:g:tnIAAOSwuxFYtqcK
Interesting timing. Thanks for letting me know. I hadn’t seen it. Just yesterday I was looking through the folder of vintage catalogues that I received a few years ago looking for something specific, and I happened across a folder marked Hopf. The brochure was from 1976, and of course didn’t feature D&J horns anymore—since the company was long gone by then—but they still offered saxophones.
By the mid-70s Hopf no longer had saxophones stencilled for them, and offered Grassi and JK saxophones.
If the ad was placed at the moment that you found the Hopf folder the statistics would be miraculous.
As there are more than twelve hours between the two events, we can still see it as coincidence.
I have the same silver tenor. It is stenciled “Concerto” and has a date 1960 also stenciled on it.
Update: Although this tenor didn’t sell the first time around, on its second time around on eBay, this D&J stencil horn found a new home on April 6. The sole bidder paid £495.00, which eBay estimates to be approximately $802.49 US.