Werner Roth (WERO)

Source: Mark Wiseman, The Little Sax Shop

Werner Roth (WERO) learned how to build saxophones with Franz Köhler. Köhler—not to be confused with Kohlert—was located in Markneukirchen. In 1949 Roth set up his own shop in Breitenfeld, where he produced saxophones with the model names Royal and Sinfonia. The bell engraving on the horns was ornate, and besides the model name included the following:

W. Roth
Saxophone (the German plural for saxophone)
Breitenfeld i.V.

Roth’s saxophones had a variety of features which were found in other German saxophones of the day, but the features varied over the different models, and over the production run. Some of the Roth horns had rolled tone holes, a high F# key, or might even have had the key guards which looked like those you would find on Hohner Presidents.

Roth also made saxophones for B&S, so you can find saxophones that are stencilled WERO Royal, in addition to having a B&S label.

Werner Roth closed down his shop in 1972, therefore any of his saxophones you find today would be considered vintage horns.

This particular Roth saxophone is a nickel plated Royal model, serial # 2256. It has rolled tone holes and the key guards which resemble those of the Hohner President. It does not however have a high F# key. It does have the typical G# and high D/D# trill keys which were common in German saxes of the era. What it also has, is an interesting vented F key, which Mark identifies as being located where you would normally find the Fork Eb key.

 Source: Mark Wiseman, The Little Sax Shop

I have slowly started to collect more images of these rather rare German horns. This is a relatively slow process, because they come up for sale very infrequently. (I suspect that very few were ever made.) If you’d like to see more Werner Roth WERO saxes, check out my Bassic Sax Pix Gallery.

If you happen to own a WERO saxophone, and you’re willing to contribute photos to the Werner Roth gallery at Bassic Sax Pix, please let me know. Thanks!

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Note: The source of information for this page is from Uwe Ladwig, in der deutschen Fachzeitschrift—German music journal—SONIC sax & brass.

I would like to thank Uwe for so generously allowing me to use his research, and very much appreciate the trust he has shown by allowing me to do my own translation.