1914 Conn Wonder Model

[markieg]

I have a friend with one of these. Unfortunately it's in very poor condition. The brass was tarnished over 90% of the instrument, but she's polishing the tarnish off and it's turning out fairly nice. It needs all new pads and some of the screws rusted in the posts. It also needs new springs. My question is how much would it be worth now, how much after polishing it, and how much after restoring to playing condition? I know a lot of these were made with the same date of 1914, but the SN# of 31xxx tells me that it was made in 1914.

[markieg]

So I messed up. It's a Wonder model Series 1. The SN# of 81xxx instead of 31xxx tells me it's a 1921, not a 1914-1915.

[morgan]

it's worth restoring if you want a good sax to play

if you want to sell for a profit, you'll do better NOT restoring it

[markieg]

Well I'm interested in playing it. She wants to sell it to me for $150 after polishing it up, but I'm also interested in playing my Vito (it's before they went student-line). I don't need 2 altos, so I'm really up in the air on this. Neither is worth a whole lot of money, but they both are potentially good horns. I just love the dark laquer of my Vito, but would probably get a satin silver finish on the Conn if I got it. Maybe I'll pass one on to my sister and convince her to get rid of her Bundy II. This sux, I have 3 altos and a soprano sitting in this house and all I want is a bari. Crazy.

[markieg]

So I can't get any info on this right. It's a C melody and I really have little use for it except for some of the tenor parts you hear on TV. Although I have seen some of the key signatures that C instruments are forced to put up with. Not my idea of fun.