Horn Details Seller's Blurb

Make	SML (Strasser-Marigaux-Lemaire)		Price/Date	$5999 / 2016
Model	"Rev. C"		Finish	Lacquer
Pitch	Eb Baritone		Keyed Range	Low Bb to altissimo F
Serial	10479		Bell Keys	Right
Year	1953		Tone Holes	Soldered; straight
Source Link	GetASax.com		Octave Key	N/A

 

For sale as of May 8, 2016! Go buy it!

This rare SML baritone saxophone is in fine condition, sporting Rev D era keywork, and soldered tone holes like a Martin. The horn is original lacquer and is in good condition. It had an expensive $1400 overhaul last year, followed by another very thorough ($500) couple of days worth of playing condition work and setup by Matt Stohrer. SML baris have an incredibly big, dark tone with a French core, which sounds great. If you want to own a rare saxophone in great condition, this is definitely for you.

This is an interesting bari for a few different reasons. First of all, it is an SML. The highly-coveted SML bari is a rare beast, not often seen in the United States, or indeed anywhere. SML only made around 24000 saxophones over its long history, and of those, the vast majority seem to have been alto and tenor. My guess would be roughly 90% alto and tenor, 9% soprano and 1% baritone, based on what I have seen come up for sale over the past several years.

This particular baritone is in fine condition, sporting Rev D era keywork, and soldered tone holes like a Martin. There is another one like this featured on saxpics.com that you can compare if you like. The horn is original lacquer and is in good condition. It had an expensive $1400 overhaul last year, followed by another very thorough ($500) couple of days worth of playing condition work and setup by Matt Stohrer. It is now in quite good playing condition and should be ready to go for a long time.

Past mechanical issues include a dent removed from the upper bow and some other minor past dent work that is typical of most baritone overhauls, as well as some lacquer burns that you can see where one of the keyguards was resoldered. It's in excellent condition considering that it's a 50+ year-old baritone.

SML baris have an incredibly big, dark tone with a French core, which sounds great. Think vintage Conn, but with a more dense, I almost want to say 'dark chocolate' core to the tone. It's a fun horn to play, and the intonation is pretty good. Definitely more like a Selmer from the 50's or 60's – good, pretty slotted in, but still requiring thought and some moderate voicing in the throat, which is no big deal if you are at all an experienced player. The keywork feels nice under the fingers – very balanced and pretty fast. The horn is pretty heavy, so you might want to wear it with a Saxholder strap or something like that. The strap hook could also be lower in my opinion.

If you want to be the only guy I know with an SML baritone, buy this. It will turn heads and definitely sound great for many many years to come. It should also continue to go up in value especially as people start to realized how rare these horns are.