WWBW Borgani

[hangman]

Can someone tell me when the WW&BW stopped sellig Borgani's and didthey overlap while Robertos sold them?

[newking70]

probably not enough of a profit margin

[thehighend]

I know that WWBW was clearing out Borgani altos for low prices 2 years ago.

[Mango Birkie]

I believe that the Borgani's that WWBW was selling were the pre-Jubilee models.

[Dr G]

... and I believe that, at least some of, the sop's were Jubilee models. Why do I think that? I bought one from a SotW member who told me that was where it came from - and he was kind enough to pass along the good guy price as well. (It had the "J" in the serial number, screw-on bell, etc.)

[Tryptykon]

The Jubilee's debuted in 1997 or 98 in the WW/BW catalog.
They were characterized as having a *sweet and lovely* sound, and because
of that I wasn't that interested in them, thinking 'sweet and lovely' probably
translated to a 'small and wimpy' sound.

So it wasn't until probably 2000 or so that I had any live exposure to them;
within a couple of months I heard Joe Lovano playing one live & he explained
to me his collaboration with the Borgani family(he was playing one of several
prototypes of his eventual custom model)

within that same time frame Tim Price emailed me about a life-altering
experience w/ a soprano he had played at Robertos(NYC)woodwinds.

A Borgani .

At this point I ordered a soprano to try from WW/BW .
Again a life altering experience on this end, as well--I bought the damn thing.

When I went to Tim's house to compare, he was shocked to find that the
WWBW Borg was the same horn as his; a few s/n's away ..

Of course, thinking of Joe's tone(one of my favorites in that period) I then
ordered a couple of Tenors to try.

The 24K Gold blew me away !

At that time I had in my posession:

-2 very good 60s MK VI tenors,
-an early 50s Super 20(that tenor was fatal !)
-a Conn 1939 30M, a 1937 10M, and a '28 Chu tenor.

The Borgani was _right there_ in sound and response.

I bought it; I didn't need it, but at the price I figured by the time I wanted
to make the switch WWBW would be out of them, and I would be free to
go pay 3x the price .:shock:

Later I picked up a pearl silver tenor from their B-stock list.8-)

The silver doesn't have the *J* next to the s/n, but sounds right on par with
the gold; I preffered the sound, actually and that was the one I've kept.

It has the traditonal(pearl) front F key vs the rounded type of the Jubilee,
and it's RH stack is a little more spread out, so in that regard I think they
hadn't settled on the key placement quite yet.

I would say it would be like comparing an early 10M that wasn't stamped
10M, but obviously has all the salient features.

I did try some of the earlier borganis they had at the time, and those were
not up to par( different build quality, intonation was not quite right).

Anyway WWBW has been out of Borganis for a few years, so ..

They had a pearl silver alto that I tried and sent back, because I was
getting outta control w/ stockpiling saxophones .. man it sounded great !!

[xuanvu]

I think that WWBW stopped selling the Borgani when Roberto's WW became the authorized and probably got the deal to be the ONLY in the U.S. That's when the price started to get rocket high, too...

Kenny.

[J.Max]

I had a Borgani soprano from WWBW in the early 90's. Frankly, it was a terrible instrument. I'm guessing that the newer ones are made much differently.