Superba II Soprano
Unlike the Superba I, the Superba II soprano saxophones did not undergo any evolutions during the 22 or so years that Herb Couf had his saxophones produced by the Julius Keilwerth company in Germany. Other than the rare horn with a different finish—and a few with the occasional aftermarket part*—all the Superba II sopranos I catalogued were identical.
Similarities to Phase 1 Superba I
If you compare the following features to those of the Phase 1 Superba I, you’ll notice that with the exception the MOP left thumb rest and chromatic F# key on the Superba I, the 2 models are pretty much identical.
Superba II – features
- Black plastic G# key touch
- MOP key touches are smaller, with button inset within brass “cup”. Metal edges encircle the pearls.
- Black plastic left thumb rest
- Mark VI style left palm keys.
- High D, Eb, F tone holes are inline, and on the front of the body tube—also like on the Mark VI
- Left pinkie cluster attached to rods at the back of the keys
- Bell keys on the top of the body tube
- Right pinkie keys old-school JK-style
- No high F#
- No front F
- Sliver-shaped chromatic F# key
- Fixed metal right thumb rest
- Lyre holder on the front, just above bell keys.
- Straight tone holes
- Post to body construction
- Hand engraving
- Serial # range seen to date: 64031 – 80587
Superba II # 64031 – Lacquer
Superba II # 76940 – Lacquer
Superba II # 78937 – Blackgold
Horns with additions
Many thanks go to the following people:
I want to acknowledge the incredible work done by Steve Sklar. Steve has been researching and writing about H. Couf saxophones for years before I came along. By generously allowing me to springboard off his materials, Steve has saved me countless of hours.
Thank you Steve. You are a great colleague, and I very much appreciate and enjoy our work together on the Woodwind Forum!
I also want to thank Brian at Get A Sax, Paul from PM Woodwind, Roberto from Robertos Winds, Mark from USA Horn, as well as Chadd from World Wide Sax, for allowing me to use their images throughout all these H. Couf saxophone pages. Beautiful images are vital to illustrating the beautiful horns that Herb Couf helped the Julius Keilwerth Company design.