Couesnon Alto - a mad impulse purchase?

[Jadoube]

In a moment of madness I bought a beat up old Couesnon off ebay. Mad because, to quote my wife, "why another sax when you're only just learning how to play the one you've got".

Well it was going for a song. Since my teacher thinks its time I learnt some basic maintenance I thought lets not go tinkering with my sax, get a scrap one for practice. I'd read on saxpics site that many of these can be high pitch so I'm not expecting it to be any use and having got my hands on it its certainly in poor shape.

But then I start dreaming, just suppose, is it worth fixing it? I'd ask my teacher but he's recuperating from a triple bypass so I'd really appreciate comment before I take it in for a quote.

Text reads :

Couesnon & Cie
Fourmsseurs de L Armee
94 Rue De D' Anglolleme
Paris

There's a 25 printed inside a small symbol below this.

There's a small dent on base. Most pads look shoddy, at least one literally disintegrating, but a few appear to be relatively recent replacements. Cork on crook also looks new, except the m'piece was stored on it for a few years and as a result its lost its shape.

There is widely varying spring tension on different keys but all appear to move freely rathen than any indication of a rusted up mechanism. And its lost 99.99 % of any lacquer it ever had. Pictures here: http://pichotel.com/album_folder/2265ed2cz/3935

The disintegrating pad leaves a visible leak and the notes I've got out of it appear high, as a result? Despite that it has rather a nice sound.


So please help, tell me to stop being a dreamer, or tell me its worth taking to a tech.

Many thanks

[Dave dix]

Have a look here http://www.saxpics.com/Couesnon/
Dave

[bruce bailey]

These oldies are more for collectors than players. I find them to be stuffy and the keywork is really basic compared to horns of the 20s and newer. At least it appears to have a single automatic octave key as many of these havee 2 keys that must be switched from A2 upward. Remember, no rollers and only goes down to B not Bb. I did over a Buffet brass tenor similar to yours and it was a waste of time (money).

[Jadoube]

Thanks for the advice guys. Looks like dreaming is out.

[bruce bailey]

Collector horns are always good to keep around. Look at the Conn-o-sax! These things were pretty cheap 35 years ago and now a fortune. You may want to just get the Couesnon "going" and have fun with it. In 1969 I sold a Selmer padless tenor in raw brass for $100 as they were pretty common but now they are "interesting".

[Jadoube]

Bruce, good advice. Don't know of a collector market in the UK so cant pass it on anyway. I'll keep it, its certainly not going in the bin

I may or may not get around to doing anything with it. Not sure whether doing so would establish a hobby - making the wife more accepting of future impulse buys :) , or would establish a workload - meaning future impulse buys were banned :x

Of course lacking the skill could be a bit of a barrier to fixing it so its playable, but we all have to start somewhere and it was the original of the the purchase. First step find the tools, second step find some instructions, then proceed with care.