[Pete Thomas]

I mentioned this elsewhere but someone pointed out I should post it in the Buescher section, so if any mods want to merge the threads please go ahead.

I have for sale (in aid of my fundraising for disabled children) a stunning reproduction of the 1926 Buescher publication, The Story of the saxophone.

You can see extracts here:

http://tamingthesaxophone.com/saxophone-story.html

• Pictures of famous saxophone players and band leaders of the time
• Buescher purchase plans, order forms, price lists
• The History of the Saxophone
• How F.A. Buescher Perfected the Belgian's Idea (!)
• Features Your Saxophone Must Have
• The Buescher Key System
• The Buescher Saxophone Family
• A complete illustrated description of all the models
• Available finishes
• Your First Lessons
• Beginner's Fingering Chart
• Advertisements for instruments and cases
• Shipping and ordering information
• Satisfaction guaranteed
• Your Questions Answered
• Letters You Will Enjoy Reading

This isn't just images taken from the internet, it is very high res scan of an original, restored and reprinted as an A4 booklet - a great Christmas present for any Buescher owner.

 

[ToreH]

Perfect Christmas present - for myself :santa:

order sent

 

[saintsday]

Perfect Christmas present - for myself :santa:

order sent

Ditto.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Ditto.

Cutting it a bit fine for Christmas, it might just get to Ohio by then but I wouldn't put money on it. I'll be posting it in about 20 minutes time though.

 

[saintsday]

Don't fret Pete. I'll wrap a copy of your post and put it under the tree for myself.:mrgreen:

 

[Hornlip]

Looks good. Even looking at the low-res extractions you can tell how clean the scans are.

I notice on the price page that there are three Bb soprano models listed (and two Eb alto models). I'm guessing the spare soprano and alto are High Pitch models?

I've seen original copies of that brochure pop up in auctions, but the bids pretty quickly exceeded my budget for such things.

 

[VintageSaxGuy]

I wanted to say that I've received mine (although it was quickly redirected to a spot under a tree for some reason :TGNCHK.

It's a really great repro. and if any of you (who haven't bought it yet!) have an appreciation for the history of Buescher, you should really buy one. It's a chance to get a printed copy of a rare catalog, AND help out a good cause at the same time.

Pete,

Thanks for making a copy of this available to us, and thanks for helping such a wonderful cause.

I notice on the price page that there are three Bb soprano models listed (and two Eb alto models). I'm guessing the spare soprano and alto are High Pitch models?

Buescher (and Conn as well) referred to what we commonly call a 'sopranino' as an Eb soprano. So the three soprano's are in the keys of Eb C and Bb.

And the neat thing about this edition (unlike the '23) is that it includes the straight alto as well. :headbang:

 

[Hornlip]

. . . .the neat thing about this edition (unlike the '23) is that it includes the straight alto as well. :headbang:

Ah I forgot about the straight alto!!

I couldn't read the price page very well, but it seemed that it listed the Eb and C sopranos separately but had three designated as Bb. So I figured it was straight, curved, and something else.

As for the third soprano, I had also been wondering if it was the tipped-bell model.

 

[saintsday]

Mine came today and I am very, very pleased. Thank you, Pete. A great job for a good cause.

 

[mhegerjr]

I ordered two and they were delivered very quickly. The catalog is of very high quality and anyone who is interested in Bueschers, or vintage horns in general, really should have a copy. Fantastic! Just a quick question, were the straight alto and tipped bell soprano introduced in 1926 or in 1928? Could that page be from a later catalog? Another question - Does anyone have any thoughts as to why the catalogs of that era have artist-drawn renderings of the instruments rather than actual photographs? Is this because color film didn't yet exist at that time?

Thank you, Pete! It's so nice to purchase something that truly excess your expectations!

 

[Hornlip]

[ ] - Does anyone have any thoughts as to why the catalogs of that era have artist-drawn renderings of the instruments rather than actual photographs? Is this because color film didn't yet exist at that time?

I've wondered about that, too. The practice continued through to the '39 catalog, where it looks like photographs of instruments were rendered into some kind of lithographic reproduction; even the '54 catalog shows drawn instruments rather than pictures. Definitely they could reproduce photographs in print no problem; the 1909 catalog mixes engraved images of horns with photographs of various musicians holding their Buescher instruments.

Probably a cost x unit consideration for the printing process, assuming the originals were printed on sheet-fed flat presses with drum-mounted printing plates. Reproducing high quality, detailed photographs of the kind you would want for the instruments may have added an extra step to the printing process, maybe even an additional run through the press.

Further, I'm guessing Buescher ordered a lot of catalogs, but probably not such a massive number that the printer could charge a lower price that might have made high quality photographic reproductions possible. It's expensive in time and materials to set up a press for a print run, and to clean it up afterwards. The more copies you order, the less the set up costs eat into the printer's profit on the run & after the number of copies ordered reaches a certain threshold, the printer can charge less per unit than at lower numbers.

 

[paulwl]

That makes sense over all - at that cost:| point, engravings could also give finer detail than photos with the print tech of those days. But even engravings were mixed up sometimes, ie: showing the next to latest model while the copy gave the features of the very latest.

Conn went to highly retouched photos about 1934. Sometimes these had to be messed with pretty obviously. The straight soprano had the late model bell engraving pasted in, probably because there were no finished horns in stock. They didn't even bother doing this to the F mezzo.

 

[Hornlip]

That makes sense over all - at that cost:| point, engravings could also give finer detail than photos with the print tech of those days. But even engravings were mixed up sometimes, ie: showing the next to latest model while the copy gave the features of the very latest.

True. For instance, IIRC the '39 catalog shows a split-bell Aristocrat baritone & even though baris tended to get upgraded last, I think both tone holes had migrated to the left side before then.