{"id":44822,"date":"2016-05-06T10:18:10","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T17:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=44822"},"modified":"2024-06-22T11:16:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-22T18:16:58","slug":"the-chicago-musical-instrument-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2016\/the-chicago-musical-instrument-co\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chicago Musical Instrument Co."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the vintage catalogues I was sent a few years ago was for the Chicago Musical Instrument Co. The catalogue is recorded as being from 1931.<\/p>\n

If anyone is interested in the company’s history, according to Wikipedia<\/a>, Chicago Musical Instrument Co. was a musical instrument distributor between 1920 and 1969. During its 49 year history, the company acquired a number of famous names as subsidiaries, including: Gibson Guitars, Epiphone, Lowrey Organs, F.E. Olds, William Lewis & Son Co., Krauth & Beninghoften, L.D. Heater Music Company, as well as Selmer UK.<\/p>\n

Among the various interesting odds and sods contained in the 1931 catalogue that I have, are pages dedicated to the saxophone brands that the company sold. Over the next few days I’m going to post the various pages for Martin, Pan American, and Cavalier saxophones. To my knowledge this will be the first time that these particular vintage catalogue pages have appeared online.<\/p>\n

Chicago Musical Instrument Co. sells Martin Handcraft saxophones<\/h2>\n


\n<\/a>\"Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a Martin Handcraft tenor<\/a>. For many years it was my only backup tenor, and truth be told, it went out on many gigs before my Mark VI did.<\/p>\n

There is just something special about the Handcraft. It has a special sound\u2014a special something<\/em> that can’t quite be described\u2014but once you hear it, you know what it is.<\/p>\n

Even compared to my friend’s Committee III tenor, my ergo-challenged Handcraft outshines it in the sound and tone department. Why? I don’t know. Because these vintage horns were all built by hand they are all slightly different. Maybe I just happened to end up with one that got a bit of magic dust sprinkled on it by the fairies over at Martin. \ud83d\ude09   Whatever the case, my Handcraft kicks some serious ass. It is perhaps the most rich-sounding sax I have, but without a doubt, the least friendliest to play. (Especially nowadays that my fingers don’t work quite as fast and as well as they used to.)<\/p>\n

The Martin Troubadour<\/h2>\n

If you look at the Martin specialty site, themartinstory.net<\/a>, you’ll notice that Edwin refers to the Troubadour as a transitional model. These horns only had two right hand palm keys, but depending on how you used them, they opened different keys. Thus they still worked like three palm keys did.<\/p>\n

When my buddy Pete Hales still owned saxpics, he described the operation of the palm keys like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

These horns have a very interesting key mechanism: only two RH palm keys that do the work of three. In actuality, while the altissimo E\/F vent key is eliminated, the function is not. What essentially happens is when you play high enough (high B and above, if I remember correctly), a double spring “activates” the chromatic side C key as the altissimo E\/F vent key. This sounds like a kinda freaky idea, but this same feature was found on the late King Voll True and early Voll True II — which was produced at about the same time (and for about as long \ud83d\ude42 )<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eb alto<\/h3>\n

\"Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

Bb tenor<\/h3>\n

\"Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

Eb baritone<\/h3>\n

We bari players have to wait years longer than alto and tenor players before the new models of horns arrive in our voice. (Just think how long it took Selmer to roll out the Super Action 80 Series III bari!) This 1931 catalogue would indicate that bari players did not have the option of buying a Martin Troubadour bari that year. However, note that the horn pictured in the catalogue only has two right palm keys.<\/p>\n

I poured through the images on The Martin Story<\/a>, saxpics<\/a>, as well as the few I have in my own gallery<\/a>, and noticed that without fail all the Martin Handcraft baritones had two right palm keys, yet were all keyed to high F. Huh? Does this mean that they all utilized this specialized key mechanism from The Troubadour before it was introduced in that model? I can’t imagine it, yet I can’t explain the key layout either.<\/p>\n

If anyone has a Martin Handcraft baritone with only two palm keys that is keyed to high F, and can explain this, please leave a comment. Thanks!<\/p>\n

\"Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

C melody & Bb soprano<\/h3>\n

Like their Eb baritone cousins, the C mel and the Bb soprano didn’t get the upgrade to The Troubadour immediately\u2014if at all. None of the online galleries that I have seen show these horns available in The Troubadour model, which kind of makes sense, since it was a transitional model.<\/p>\n

\"Chicago<\/a><\/p>\n

I hope you have enjoyed these interesting bits of Martin saxophone historic trivia. I always like to see what things sold for when they were new back in the day, and compare them to what we pay for our pro horns today.<\/p>\n

If you are interested in doing some of that, one tool to do this with is this inflation calculator from the US Dept of Labor<\/a>. It tells me that if I had wanted to buy the baritone with Finish 2 for $200.00, in today’s dollars it would cost me $3,133.32 US. (Case not included in that price.) Now interestingly enough, where can you find a new, pro-model, handmade saxophone for that amount of money?<\/p>\n

I’ll let you ponder on that. Feel free to chime in with comments.<\/p>\n

I’ll post the pages on Pan American saxophones in the next day or two.<\/p>\n

\n
…this is just my blog<\/em>. <\/span> My \u201creal\u201d <\/b> website is<\/span> www.bassic-sax.info.<\/a> If you\u2019re looking for <\/span> sax info<\/strong>,<\/span> you should check it out too.<\/span>There\u2019s lots<\/em> there! <\/span><\/div>\n
 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the vintage catalogues I was sent a few years ago was for the Chicago Musical Instrument Co. The catalogue is recorded as being …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[78],"tags":[150,692,639,644,643,31,573],"class_list":["post-44822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vintage-horns","tag-american-saxophones","tag-handcraft","tag-martin","tag-photos","tag-vintage-horns","tag-vintage-sax","tag-vintageantique-catalogues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t