A few months ago I noticed another Dörfler & Jörka (D&J) made stencil horn that I had never seen before. I had come across the name John Burg Zürich before, but I hadn’t seen one in the wild.
While this tenor doesn’t have any reference to Zürich that we can see, this is none-the-less still a D&J-made John Burg. It is possible that there are other John Burgs out there with the extra word Zürich, but until I come across one with that engraving, this one illustrates the name nicely.
I was immediately struck by the fact that this was a lacquer horn like my De Villiers. Most D&J horns I’ve come across are two-tone, with the rest being roughly evenly divided between lacquer and silver plate. The other thing that I noted about it was its condition. It appears to be in very fine shape, and even has most of its lacquer intact.
Although I can’t say with 100% certainty that this is the original MP that came with the horn, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was. The lig & cap line up with what we saw on other mid-century German saxophones such as Hammerschmidt, and of course JK.
Speaking of JK, I would be remiss if I didn’t state that this D&J tenor #8429, circa 1957, is basically an acoustic copy of Keilwerth’s The New King. However, D&J saxophones are NOT Keilwerth stencils.
Dörfler & Jörka was its own company with a history that is somewhat complicated, and completely interwoven with the Julius Keilwerth company. Please see the D&J page on Bassic Sax to read about the company, and how the two companies worked together—and sometimes not—during the middle part of the 20th century.
When I originally saw this this John Burg tenor for sale on eBay it was listed for $1500 US. My reaction could best be summed up by this little old-time emoji 
I mean you can get an unrestored 1957 Keilwerth Toneking or The New King for that kind of money.
Yesterday I noticed this D&J tenor was still up for sale—no surprise there—but with a price closer to reality ($860 US). Only problem is the horn is located in Switzerland, so shipping costs will be rather brutal. Even in Europe shipping costs will be a consideration.
Photo gallery of John Burg #8429
Who was John Burg?
Many manufacturers—D&J included—simply made up stencil names. While they did indeed build horns for other companies on order, sometimes they just engraved a variety of names on the bell of identical horns 1. I thought it might be possible that John Burg was one of these made-up names.
I searched for the John Burg name online in various search engines and found something surprising: reeds sleeves for saxophones. It would appear that John Burg was in fact a music store that operated for a while in Zürich. However, when I tried to see the location of the former shop through street view, I ran into a roadblock. It is on a pedestrian-only street, so there is no view of the building to see what it looks like now.
D&J resources on Bassic Sax
Why only on Bassic Sax? It seems like I’m the only person who has cared enough to write about these horns. 
That said, to find out more about this brand, I encourage you to check out the following I pulled together over the last 15+ years:
- Bassic Sax Pix – The largest gallery of D&J horns you will find anywhere!
- The D&J page on Bassic Sax – Company history; horn features & details; stencil names; serial # chart; JKs vs D&J how they differed; etc, etc.
- A collection of D&J articles here, in the Bassic Sax Blog – the original series of articles I had and more as they get added.
1 Faszination Saxophon: Der Saxophonbau auf deutschsprachigem Gebiet, by Günter Dullat. First edition, 2016. p. 296
