[gemsler]

Maybe someone can help me identify this alto, there is no serial number that i can find or anything else like Made in **, I assume it's Chinese? but it does look old, and the receiver for the Neck Strap is really small, for a metal Hook only.
It has a strange (to me) Octave mechanism, much different than my Selmer, also got a new Chinese Alto, and that one is much the same as Selmers.

www.photobucket.com/camelot_alto

Thanks

 

[JayeLID]

Wow...I love a mystery and can usually at least come close...but that one is a head-scratcher.

Fair to say it is an 80's horn or later, but probably not much later....just judging from the pinky table (BTW, always a good idea to give a full-frontal of a horn's pinky table).

The pic of the bow and bell keys made me actually think it was earlier...so the table sorta surprised me. The bellbrace is uniquely atrocious...horrible,, really...and not like any I have seen before.

I agree...very cool octave mech, wacky !

Pretty darn strange horn.

I am stumped....

 

[gemsler]

Thank you, that bell brace is quite a piece of art! The action of the Keys is actually quite good, must be pretty strong body also, the keyguards are bent, knocked off etc. but there is very few dents.

This sax will be used in teaching myself how to do a repad job

My son started Playing Clarinet in 6th grade band this year. Now the had auditions for Sax, since i didn't have an Alto I picked up on of those ebay Chinese horns more out of curiosity than anything, so he could practice. Anyway, it turns out that he had the best score out of 25 kids trying out and they gave him a choice in what to play. He picked the Tenor... now i am in the hunt for a Tenor. (not sure if it would be a good Idea to let him drag my Selmer back and force to middle School)
Was looking (and still am) at the B&S from Woosax, but i think it will go out of my budget.

 

[JayeLID]

Well that pic just muddles the water even more ! That pinky table seems sorta '70's-ish. It is sort of one of those designs which is halfway between a vintage table and a contemporary one. Those mostly appeared in the 70's....on a variety of asian and European horns.

I was thinking it might be a Bundy II stencil, but...nope.

Will be interesting to see how she sounds when done.....

 

[gemsler]

Do a lot of saxes have posts and axle mounted on the bell for the B and Bb keys? I checked my Selmer Tenor and Mendini Alto and both don't have it. Wonder if that would be a clue

 

[gemsler]

I got it all back together, new pads, replaced corks, leveled some of the tone holes, I am confident that there is no leaks. It plays pretty good, top to bottom, but i do notice one thing. Compared to the other altos i have, it wants to jump to the upper octave very easily, i can play the upper octave without pushing the octave key all the way up to Bb, i quickly adapted to be able to play the lower octave, but still, what am i missing, both octave keys are covering well. Is there just saxophones that have a tendency to do this, after all this is a "Unknown" make. It does sound pretty good, for my very limited abilities.

 

[David Zamora]

Hello. I got a Camelot Alto 2 years ago. Since I have the same question about it, I asked in All Experts (here in SOTW there is only one old post), but it seems nobody know them. You can see the answer and photos:
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Saxophone-2232/2011/2/PICTURES-CAMELOT-ALTO-SAX.htm
My Camelot plays pretty good. If you get more information, please let me know.

 

[gemsler]

Yours does look a lot like a Selmer copy, like your link explains, mine definitely not, especially the octave key design is very unusual, at least I have never seen anything like it. thanks for the Info

 

[JayeLID]

Do a lot of saxes have posts and axle mounted on the bell for the B and Bb keys? I checked my Selmer Tenor and Mendini Alto and both don't have it. Wonder if that would be a clue

This is a pretty typical detail...having the armatures separate from the bellkey mechanisms. A lotta horns utilized that...american ones, German ones, French ones, Italian ones. These go way, way back....they appear on split-bellkey horns, even. So....that's not giving much of a tipoff. It was a design which was utilized because of the 'lag' which oftentimes occurs with a one-piece armature (where the pad cup is connected directly to the pinky keytouches). less so on an Alto, much more so on a Tenor or BigHorn....

You say she tends to jump octaves easily. It could just be that it's a sorta unstable body design...although seems more to me like there's something going on somewhere. Might not be a leak, might be a mechanism thing.

....let me ask you this....does it seem to easily jump on ANY note ? or does it more easily do it on CERTAIN notes ???

 

[gemsler]

It will jump easy on any note all the way up to C. G is the worst, so i suspected the Octave key on the Body, but no luck, first i was sure that it must be a leak, but now i don't think there is one. Then i thought maybe that there was enough of a leak around the Neck Connection, so i sealed that up, again no improvement.
Then i thought, well it's probably me, since it did play all the way down, just had to concentrate more (and i am NOT a good Player).
But now today, I though well maybe it is the neck itself, since it had pull down form shipping. And voilà, I used the neck of the Mendini alto, and the problem instantly went away. I wonder if this comes from the changed Angle or the bore that is not so round anymore?
While doing this, i noticed that the length of the Mendini Neck is about 20mm shorter that the original "Camelot", so i guess if one would try to find a replacement neck you have to look for the correct Diameter on the Connection AND the Length?

 

[gemsler]

There was in fact a small leak between the neck tube and the tenon caused by the pull down, once i fixed that, it plays just fine. now if i could just figure out who made it..

 

[MyMartinTenor]

I had a Camelot! Here's the thread:

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?89770-Help!-What-did-I-buy&highlight=camelot

No real help, but it was an interesting adventure. Although I really liked the tone when I got it fixed up, the intonation left something (much!) to be desired, so I sold it.

 

[gemsler]

I did find that thread, it appears that Camelot is used on all kinds of different horns, on mine i think the key would be identifying the Octave mech, checked intonation on mine, seams not bad, G and Gis are a little flat, but otherwise not bad.

 

[gemsler]

This one is the Tenor version of my Camelot, same ugly neck brace, guards, left Pinky table, can't make out the octave mech, but it looks the same also.
I read that this Gulf Company was based in Taiwan, then in 89 moved to China. That would mean that my horn is probably made in Taiwan.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gulf-Tenor-...ltDomain_0&hash=item4ab4d036d3#ht_7767wt_1185

 

[clarnibass]

I was thinking it might be a Bundy II stencil, but...nope.

It does have a Bundy II vibe in a way, but yes, too many things are different. I would guess it's from China or Taiwan. A lot of these 'kind of look like something but not really' saxophones are Chinese or Taiwanese. Older ones often copied the overall look in some ways but not many of the details which were different. Though this is just a guess.

 

[Brenton]

If you want one, get in quick:- http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-CAM...819?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cce327443
At first glance it looks remarkably like a 1940's Buffet Crampon stencil. The mouthpiece alone is worth the current bid of $100.00...

 

[Hadamard]

I had a similar alto but was branded Century: same horrible bell brace, same strange octave key, same atrocious pinky table... Nice to know I was not the only one to buy to learn how to repad a sax :-D

 

[Alain Gen]

I'm not claiming it indicates a connection to Buffet-Crampon (they probably copied them). However, the octave mechanism on my Buffet alto (1975-6 Super-Dynaction, 230xx, with S1 keywork) looks exactly like the one in the picture.