{"id":6441,"date":"2009-03-27T09:21:36","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T16:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=6441"},"modified":"2012-08-06T14:10:26","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T21:10:26","slug":"a-vintage-de-villiers-tenor-saxophone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2009\/a-vintage-de-villiers-tenor-saxophone\/","title":{"rendered":"A Vintage De Villiers Tenor Saxophone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"De<\/a>At the beginning of February I saw this interesting, vintage, German saxophone at a local music store. They wanted $400 Cdn for the\u00a0De Villiers tenor, but I didn’t have a mouthpiece with me at the time, so I couldn’t play test the horn. However just from playing<\/em> the instrument with my fingers alone, I knew right away that the sax needed some work, and would be leaking.<\/p>\n

I looked over the\u00a0sax very\u00a0carefully, and even took some photos with my cell phone, because I found the horn rather intriguing. With its rolled tone holes, it looked to me like a Keilwerth stencil.<\/p>\n

When I got home I did some research, and came up with only a couple references to the De Villiers name, and they all led back to Just Saxes’ Stencils & Manufacturers\u00a0page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to Just Saxes, De Villiers was one of the names that D\u00f6rfler & J\u00f6rka\u00a0(D&J) produced their saxophones under. D&J was founded by 2 former Keilwerth employees, and was located in Neuheim, Germany. D&J saxophones\u00a0were for all facts and purposes Keilwerth clones:\u00a0made with identical keywork and hardware.\u00a0They also\u00a0played very similarly to\u00a0the Keilwerths of the same era, and had a similar voice.<\/p>\n

With that little bit of information in hand,\u00a0I started a thread on the Woodwind Forum<\/a> in the hopes that someone there might know something more about this obscure sax. Sure enough, Pete Hales did recognize the horn. He was able to lead me to Doctor Sax’s website that\u00a0had some photos of similar horns<\/a>. Through Kim’s site I was positively able to identify the De Villiers as a D\u00f6rfler & J\u00f6rka stencil saxophone.<\/p>\n

I have since bought the tenor, and have spoken to the repair centre in Vancouver where the horn has to go next week for the warranty work to be done. (A vintage sax bought with a warranty… That’s a first for me, but then I’ve never bought a vintage horn from a music store before either. I should also mention that the store is part of a national chain,\u00a0and a 90 day warrenty is standard on all used instruments they sell.)<\/p>\n

Here\u00a0are\u00a0the photos that I’ve taken of my De Villiers since I’ve bought it…<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n

My horn is so far the only one that I’ve seen that has a monotone lacquer finish. The other D&J horns all have lacquer bodies and nickle plated keys. There is one other exception to this. Another SOTW member, hastings68<\/a>, has a tenor which is engraved with the name Symphonic<\/a>, which is silver plated.<\/p>\n

The other thing that my D&J sax has, which is not shared by its nickle plated-keyed cousins, is real mother of pearl buttons on the key guards. It’s a bit hard to tell on the photos, but it appears that the Symphonic shares that feature as well. The horns with the nickle plated keys had plastic buttons on the key guards.<\/p>\n

I’m looking forward to having my Keilwerth clone (can’t really call it a stencil, even though it has a Keilwerth body tube) in proper playing condition. Because I tend to go for a bright sound, this horn will be a nice addition to my tenor family. Even as it plays right now, its Keilwerthesque<\/em> nature &\u00a0sound\u00a0are very evident.<\/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>\n<\/div>\n
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At the beginning of February I saw this interesting, vintage, German saxophone at a local music store. They wanted $400 Cdn for the\u00a0De Villiers tenor, …<\/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":[220],"tags":[219,665,151,81,646,644,141,218,198,630,643,31,53],"class_list":["post-6441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dorfler-jorka","tag-de-villiers","tag-dorfler-jorka","tag-german-saxophones","tag-keilwerth","tag-on-line-resources","tag-photos","tag-sax-on-the-web","tag-stencil-horn","tag-stencil-saxophone","tag-tenor-saxophone","tag-vintage-horns","tag-vintage-sax","tag-woodwind-forum"],"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