Antique and Vintage Saxophones

As a guitarplayer I was allways interested in the saxophone. Not only as a musical instrument but just being an art object as well. The various chatgroups about the different marks and sometimes obscure builders helped me a lot! For contact: acakoevoets@kpnmail.nl

Sunday, August 03, 2008

OSCAR ADLER ALTO SAXOPHONE


Oscar Adler & Co
The Firm was grounded in1885 in Markneukirchen by the
Pipemaker Oscar Adler (1862 - 1922).
As a model to be copied Adler used an instrument of the
french (Paris) builder Gautrot, which instrument had been lent out
to him by a Museum in Markneukirchen in 1901 (Now the
Musikinstrumentenmuseum)
This was the first Saxophone to be built in Germany.

What surprised me were two things:
The early serial number but allready only one
octave key. This instrument has been played intensively
and can really be seen as a piece of history.


Wether or not the instruments were high class or just immediate,
Adler simply putted on a shield with it's name on it.
Here's a description of a real saxplayer as I do not have the knowledge
to explain all this . . . .

Nickle Plated, many superb features, including
a) left-hand 'pinkie' keys duplicated above right-hand action
(see bottom-middle photo in the first group of four)
b) same photo also shows 'pearl low-D/Eb-trill keys'
- the last two features are also seen on some Buffet C-Mels
c) spatula 'Alt-front-F' key
d) low B and Bb on same side of the bell
e) Martin/Holton style neck brace, which
extends to almost the total neck length
f) very effective cup bumper clips
g) note the very appropriate lack of engraving,
just the classic Oscar Adler & Co stamp
h) soldered toneholes
Für Oscar Adler waren unter anderem auch Julius und Max Keilwerth tätig.
Beide stellten für Adler Saxophone in Heimarbeit her.
Der eine dieser beiden Brüder sollte später einmal die größte deutsche Firma leiten,
die in Deutschland jemals Saxophone baute
Translation:
For Oscar Adler were busy Julius and Max Keilwerth among others.
Both of these gentlemen made saxophones for Adler in their own
workshop after having built instruments for Kohlert for a few years.
They started for Adler in about 1920 for 5 years.
After that time they started their own workshop.