[hnthere]

I bought a 1955-ish 16M tenor that someone listed on Craigslist mid-summer. One thing that intrigued me when searching for one and then deciding how much to pay was the variety of necks shown in photos when these are listed for sale, even looking only at the older 16Ms with wire guards.

The neck on mine doesn't have a separate brace rod connected at each end to the neck. Instead, it has a form-fitting half-round rod running along the bottom of the neck that's trimmed to a long point just before the cork and is cut with a bevel at the opposite end of the neck. Do all Conn necks have something like this, but with "better" ones having a separate brace rod mounted to that? According to what I've pieced together from older threads or other sites, it seems a neck like this might have come from a Conn stencil but it's OK because Conn necks are interchangeable, intonation-wise. Is that correct?

Maybe a 16M is especially likely to have a "lesser" replacement neck - a lower-level sax probably is especially likely to spend time in the hands of someone who will wreck a neck and then not want to spring for the cost of repair or authentic replacement. Or maybe there's a market for 16M necks for 10M owners who lost or damaged theirs. Or is this more common with other Conn's than I realize and just another quirk of playing a 60+ year old instrument? I'm not losing any sleep over this, I'm just curious.

 

[JayeLID]

Not that unusual...one cannot look at the brace and conclude 'that was the better neck' or 'this isn't an original neck' when we look at 16M's.

Off the top of my head - Beaugnier, Kohlert, older Borganis, various iterations of the Bundys, Kings, older Martins, etc just to name a few...they all changed up their neck braces from time to time....

Fact is the neck tube of the 16M/Pan Am actually remained the same, although aesthetically the necks appeared different due to the braces and perhaps the saddles and guides to a degree....

If the neck aesthetic fits one of the usual profiles - wire brace with slight curvature (a'la early 10M), soldered spine to underside of tube (Pan Ams/early 16M) or a sheet brace with round escutcheons (later 16M)....they were all 16M necks, not non-brand replacements....

Yes, intonation wise and tonality wise Conn necks are generally interchangeable....the only asterisk being the NWI and II necks were of a different taper than the 10M/PanAm/16M neck tubes, sooooo...the tone those produce will differ a bit from the later necks....but intonation is still good if one uses one on a later Conn.

IMHE....

 

[hnthere]

Thanks.

Are you saying that the Pan Am/early 16M necks typically or at least sometimes had only a spine under the tube, without an additional brace rod? That's what this has, which would make sense with it being a 1st-year 16M. Someone had written somewhere that the lack of a separate rod signaled that a neck had been on a stencil. It's hard to know 60+ years later.

It makes no difference to me - the workmanship of the neck seems top-notch and I kind of like the look without the additional brace. And, since I mount mouthpieces before mounting the neck on the sax, there might have less need for the additional bracing..

 

[turf3]

Many of the Pan Am necks I've seen have the "spine" and not the characteristic Conn brace. My 10M has one of these necks and I came to the conclusion that it's a Pan Am neck. (I think that MIGHT be why this one has no hint of the infamous 10M warble on low notes.)

The arch of the neck changed later in the 16M run as my approx. 1970 Mexi-Conn has a flatter arch than the usual 10M neck arch, but my older 16M years ago had the characteristic 10M neck arch.

I found the Pan Am style neck felt too flexy and added a 10M-style wire brace.

 

[JayeLID]

Correct on both of above. I have seen the spine brace on PanAm horns quite a bit. Is a PA a 'stencil' Conn ? I suppose one could characterize it that way.,,,in which case claiming 'the spine appeared on their stencils" would be a reasonable observation.

In any case, fear not, the neck sounds original to the horn. Interesting thing here is sometimes the necks on 16M's varied within a certain time-frame. I have seen 16M's with a wire brace which were serialed later than ones with the sheet brace....not often, but sometimes....and given the clues the necks appeared to be original to the horns....

 

[hnthere]

I love this kind of thing.

My first car was an older Alfa Romeo (1971) that I spent a summer repairing after graduating from college in 1984. One memorable aspect of that car was Alfa apparently had multiple suppliers and used whatever was on the shelf as it built a car. As I remember it, brake system components in that year's model could be from one of three different suppliers and parts weren't interchangeable. If I were annoyed by that kind of thing instead of charmed by it, I probably would have bought a modern Yamaha, not a 65-year old 16M.

 

[Tryptykon]

I have a 16M from the same period I think .. 565,xxx serial number .. simple C.G. CONN LTD. engraving on the bell.
The neck has a spine bracing underneath, no post .

Two other Pan American split bell tenors I have also have the spine-braced necks.
Another Geo M. Bundy Pan Am stencil tenor I have has a post-braced neck. All are the original necks

 

[JayeLID]

I love this kind of thing.

My first car was an older Alfa Romeo (1971) that I spent a summer repairing after graduating from college in 1984. One memorable aspect of that car was Alfa apparently had multiple suppliers and used whatever was on the shelf as it built a car. As I remember it, brake system components in that year's model could be from one of three different suppliers and parts weren't interchangeable. If I were annoyed by that kind of thing instead of charmed by it, I probably would have bought a modern Yamaha, not a 65-year old 16M.

Yup...wasn't that unusual back in the day, it seems. The Champion of this in the sax world had to be Beaugnier, actually....they did that all the time. Just grabbed different neck braces, pantguards, keyguards and slapped 'em on whatever body was coming down the line at the time. They even went further and had TWO kinds of Tenor necks they fabricated & would grab...one aka the 'short neck', the other with the sequitir nickname ....well, um, you can guess I am sure....

Made for some doozy threads when people were trying to determine what model horn it was...because of course a basis for that is comparing like details, lol....

 

[turf3]

Hey, these guys were running factories. Their objective was to build products that they could sell. As long as the quality met standards, they didn't care about minor mechanical details that never assumed importance till 50-80 years later.

 

[hnthere]

I have a 16M from the same period I think .. 565,xxx serial number .. simple C.G. CONN LTD. engraving on the bell.

To further illustrate the randomness of manufacturing back in the day, my 16M also has a 565,xxx serial number (xxx = 821) but with shooting stars on the bell.

 

[Tryptykon]

To further illustrate the randomness of manufacturing back in the day, my 16M also has a 565,xxx serial number (xxx = 821) but with shooting stars on the bell.

Yeah, I've wondered when the shooting stars came in .. mine is s/n 565,490, to be exact .