Very little on the web.
Do you know about the price range?

 

Not exactly, I'll pop back tomorrow and ask for approx retail prices.

 

Retail seems to be about £2500 for the altos.

 

Interesting: quite a peculiar high/intermediate price range.
Thank you for keeping us informed.

 

http://www.sax.co.uk/acatalog/Forestone.html

 

Does it actually say "Made in Japan" on the instrument?

 

I would contact sax.co.uk to ask that.

 

Curious that it comes with a reed and ligature but no mouthpiece. Reminds me of when I was a kid and toys came with no batteries and you never had the right ones around to make the thing work.

 

I'm sure they do that because they started out as a reed manufacturer before getting into the saxophone making (or stencil rebranding) business. They likely hope to hook you on their synthetic reeds with the sample provided.
Makes good marketing sense to me.

As far as not including a mouthpiece, I prefer that to be the case. Save for someone like Barone who includes a very nice, usable mouthpiece with the horn, most included pieces (Which you pay for with the price paid BTW) end up in the drawer anyway.

Experienced players usually have their preferred mouthpiece/setup, and intend to utilize it with their horn acquisition.

 

Curious. Looks like they do say "Made in Japan" on them. But surely this little reed manufacturer hasn't created new machinery, molds, etc. to make a sax from scratch. Do the parts look Taiwanese to anyone else? All except the low Eb / low C touch pieces, which are a little different. But it doesn't much resemble another Japanese horn (Yamaha / Yanagisawa) in my eyes. I'd love to know what it is really - Made in Japan of foreign parts? Assembled in Japan? Adjusted in Japan?

Of course I'd rather give one a blow, but since I can't see where any are in the US I'm relegated to discussing the origin of this species...

 

I played their tenor at the last NAMM show. They weren't really pushing them, it seemed like they had them there to demo the reeds. Seemed like a nice horn and the one I played did say made in Japan on it.

 

According to the latest sax.co.uk video, the horn is made in Taiwan and assembled in Japan. Too bad the company is using deceptive advertising by labeling the horn made in Japan.

 

Wow, looks like that vid was just published today - good find!

So the Forestone sax is more or less a Taiwanese stencil with some fit & finish done in Japan ...
I don't know how strict they are with the "Made in Japan" label, but they'd be in all sorts of trouble labeling it like that here the USA.
Hopefully they'll realize they should be more honest about it.

 

I was told by the CEO of Forestone that they are put together in Japan from imported parts. This is perfectly legal,in most countries when the parts area sourced from different places.

 

yes, and the exact meaning of definition of made or assembled in any given country might vary enormously and might not be meaning the same for different products.

While the definition of Made in USA is very well regulated, it is , for example ONLY compulsory for automobiles and textile, wool, and fur products.

There is no law in USA which makes compulsory to label anything else, but if one does label it as such, it has to be true (in as much as the law applies to define what’s made or assembled).

In Japan, things can be even more complicated. The definition of “ country of origin” extends to the country where the assembly has been made and there are different proportions depending on the type of product of actual Japanese product that might have to be part of the assembly or not.

So, it is probably allowed ( I don’t know) to buy taiwanese parts, assemble them (the level of assembly is, I think but I a m not sure, also not exactly determined so you could, in theory, get a horn where you only have to mount the the palm keys and still qualify under assembly.

This is a phenomenon which is now heavily present in watches and consumer electronics where the actual assembling has reached the point of putting together ,even in a minimal or insignificant way, parts that were mostly made and almost assembled almost completely elsewhere.

It is a jungle out there.


So currently there are many brands all over the world claiming that they make or assemble horns from parts made elsewhere. All implying that their assembly would be thus superior to the one in Taiwan or China or Vietnam (because for all we know parts that are claimed to be made in Taiwan could be made in China or Vietnam).


What I always say is, if you assemble, or claim manufacturing, since this is important to the customer, show it in your advertising material and be overt about it without burying the information under tons of distracting words.

 

This is a phenomenon which is now heavily present in watches and consumer electronics

I believe the first or most significant cases in this area were in regard to Swiss watches. "Made in Switzerland" had to become for some assemblers "Swiss Action" and I believe the Swiss objected to that.

I think the law in England is that if sall the parts came from one external source and put together in England, you could not say "Made in England", however when the parts come from multiple external sources, then you can say "made in England" if it is the last place of assembly/manufacture. This is a legal grey area though and I believe there have not yet been any test cases brought by Trading Standards or whoever. I can imagine that might happen if say I imported everything from Taiwan except the lyre holder and said "Made in England."

So it is significant how much/many of the components are made in what country.

 

Oh, those pictures are from my fb pages (not Forestone's promotional pictures)...

As a 'former' Forestone sax dealer, I know a few things (directly from Forestone) about the country of origin that everyone concerns.

Yes, the Forestone saxophone parts are made in Taiwan and shipped back to Japan.

The company sends the parts to undergo a cryogenic treatment (B.Air's patented DCTV treatment) before assembling the parts into saxes. According to Forestone, the cryogenic treatment has altered the material and which is regarded as a new material produced in Japan under Japan's existing laws. That is, Forestone says, it is legitimate to mark 'Made in Japan' on the Forestone saxophones.

 

The company sends the parts to undergo a cryogenic treatment (B.Air's patented DCTV treatment) before assembling the parts into saxes. According to Forestone, the cryogenic treatment has altered the material and which is regarded as a new material produced in Japan under Japan's existing laws. That is, Forestone says, it is legitimate to mark 'Made in Japan' on the Forestone saxophones.

Thanks for the clarification. So presumably the parts must also be lacquered in Japan? I can't imagine lacquer surviving the cryogenic process.

Both cryogenicising and annealing have been used for saxophones. Whether it has any beneficial effect on the sound is of course the subject of plenty of debate.

 

rebirth by means of a bath of which the futility is certain since brass undergoes no changes in the process

 

I didn't realize that we needed another rebranded taiwanese horn on the market... :faceinpalm:

 

I think it's great to have more consumer choice out there.

 

Whether a product can be described as, for example, "made in XXXXX" depends on the rules of origin applicable in XXXXX. Where a product is produced entirely within a country from raw materials to the finished article, the product obviously qualifies. Meat from cows raised in XXXXX would fall in this category. Where it is made partly from parts made elsewhere and assembled domestically, the determining criterion is " substantial transformation". This simply means that the product exported must be quite different from the imported one. Two main ways are used to measure. The last substantial transformation must occur within the country that is listed as "made in XXXXX". One is value added expressed as a percentage of the product.. The parts may be relatively cheap, but the value of the know-how that puts them together can be very high. For example, importing a saxophone and packaging it differently would not qualify. No real value has been added. The other method is based on a change in tariff classification. The exported good must have a different classification (using the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System developed by the World Customs Organization) from the one applied to the imported ones. Again, importing a bare brass instrument and lacquering it would not qualify, because the instrument would be the same except for change in looks. So, importing some parts from Taiwan and making them into a quality instrument in Japan would on the face of it convey Japanese origin. There is absolutely no requirement for all the parts of the saxophone to be made in Japan for it to be entitled to use "made in Japan". As might be guessed, the rules in most economies are quite similar.
The WTO Agreement on Rules of Origin describes the procedures to be applied at the border. All the procedures applying to ascribing a country of origin to a product have been developed over many decades, and they are well understood.

 

Any good choice should be based on accurate information

 

 

maybe I am naïf ( or naive however you prefer) but I did say should........I know you know but I am quoting the Oxford dictionary to help reflecting upon this not unimportant verbal form


If things don’t go the way they should, we shouldn’t stop trying to make them go that way.......

Should
modal verb ( 3rd sing. should )
1 used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions : he should have been careful | I think we should trust our people more | you shouldn't have gone.
• indicating a desirable or expected state
• used to give or ask advice or suggestions

 

maybe I am naïf ( or naive however you prefer) but I did say should.....

We know they should, and they certainly could, if only they would.

However, more horns out there of whatever quality, reputation, hype etc. does (or should) inevitably mean more competition, which is usually in the interest of the consumer.

 

well, I am not sure that the not overtly disclosed connection of a Japanese reeds brand with some cachet in a somewhat related market (saxophone and clarinet reeds) with the fact that they assemble a re born saxophone from imported parts would be necessarily detrimental to the image of product.

They could, after all, successfully manage to convince the public that a company which hasn’t produced, as far as I know, a saxophone before, has now developed a superior way to bathe the saxophone in their special liquid nitrogen which convince, gently but firmly, the atoms (or molecule or whatever is that they say that the cryogenic treatment does to the metal) to rearrange themselves in a special and otherwise elsewhere unobtainable way.

At the same time they could argue that Japanese saxophone assembly is of a superior quality.

They wouldn’t be the first ones to play heir hand that way. Maybe it will work.

 

of course, the way it plays is paramount. ..............and that is why being overt about the origins of the sax should be of no consequence to the real value of this or any sax

 

> Well, at the Musikmesse recently there were some distributors/dealers who were very interested after playtesting the horns and getting the opinions of players.

I don't see any reason to "argue" with you over the other points.

If US dealers would like to risk being accused of misrepresenting the item they are selling, that's their business.

But unless the 'maker' of this sax takes Milandro's advice and turn deception into an advertising point, when the buyer learns that he has been misled, the dealer is the first recourse....not the actor in Japan.

We are a highly litigious nation.

 

well, if the law in Japan says that you can stamp a horn made of parts coming from elsewhere and assembled in Japan with the title " made in Japan" there is little that they you can argue in the USA about it , even if you do't like it.

Of course people vote with their wallet.

Some time ago there was a similar thread on the new Ishimori saxophone. Some people despite everything declared themselves satisfied that they were prepared to pay for the Ishimori sax.

So be it!

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showth...t/showthread.php?171844-Have-you-tried-the-ishimori-Woodstone-new-vintage-tenor

 

I'll leave my argument at this, if the dealer knows or should know that the sax is not made in Japan by the US standard of the term and a customer is dissatisfied of feels misled. the last thing the dealer needs is for a court to agree with the customer.

Any litigation exceeds the value of the instrument long before a judgment.

If you have the time and inclination use Google Scholar to research US law. There may be something to support or refute what either of us are saying.

But I'd hate to be the guy behind the counter when some kid's mom or dad is a lawyer and runs into a SOTW thread about the kid's Japanese sax that isn't.

I haven't read the Ishimori thread but it starts with the familiar - designed in wherever. assembled in Taiwan.

There's enough confusion. Forestone is just another level.

- easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled -

Over.

 

" New York Paris London" (made in Taiwan) = P Mauriat. "Designed in USA" = Cannonball. Vintage American Sound, French brass, echetera , echetera... "our factory in Taiwan", "an exact mark Vi copy" "rolled tone holes" the beat goes on. Some of these are better than others and they seem to hold up well now. We need another one just like your kid needs another option for his basketball shoes.

 

We need another one just like your kid needs another option for his basketball shoes.

I would agree with that, except in my case it's football boots.

 

<edit>...

Tired of this stuff. I shall make a better effort to avoid reading this thread anymore as I already know the end of the story.

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