Please help identifying the maker of this old Selmer American Tenor

1581 Views 6 Replies 3 Participants Last post by xax, Dec 31, 2011

jargonlet

Discussion Starter · Dec 30, 2011

My grandma bought this tenor for me for my high school graduation present. I have had it since 2003 and it belonged to a session player in NYC until his death and he bought it new which makes me the 2nd owner. I have only seen a couple of these online over the last 10 years and haven't been able to find any info on them. The only info that seems to be out there is the New York stamped Selmer Americans but not the Elkhart models. I do realize that it is a stencil and did not come out of a Selmer owned factory. Does anyone have any info on these horns or regcognize what factory this would have come out of?

More pics can be found in my album on photobucket: http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa105/guitarded84/Selmer American/?start=all

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VintageSaxGuy

· #2 · Dec 30, 2011

That's a Conn stencil.

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VintageSaxGuy

· #6 · Dec 30, 2011

jargonlet said:
To date it from the serial number I assume I would go with Conn's charts then?

Serial numbers on stenciled instruments rarely correspond to those of their manufacturer. This is no exception...it can't be dated using a Conn serial number list/chart. With stencil's, most of the time the most accurate means of dating are educated guesses based on the design features the sax has.

Would this horn be of the same quality as the model that Conn sold under their own name at the time?

With stencils, they (more often than not) were based on older models that were no longer being produced as a main line instrument. So while it wouldn't have directly competed with Conn in terms of features at the time it was new, it is still a great quality Conn-made sax (just a bit watered down).

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