For sale is a beautiful Conn New Wonder silver plated Bb bass saxophone!
This is a prime golden era Conn serial #128,xxx with glorious drawn rolled tone holes!
Conn made the best bass saxophones ever produced that are now highly sought after pieces. In particular these drawn rolled tone hole bass saxophones are some of the coolest, most desirable and collectible vintage horns out there.
Early era Conn Bass saxophones have straight tone holes, then later the rolled tone holes were introduced, however when initially introduced they were only soldered onto the body.
Those said soldered rolled tone holes were soft soldered onto the body. Being soft solder only has a 90 year old or so shelf life and all of those horns are now 100+ years old they are deteriorating creating leak points and problems.
The final transformation was drawn rolled tone holes which were actually drawn and pulled directly from the body it self. The body is 1x total rock solid piece of heavy metal with the rolled tone holes drawn from the body piece itself! That is what this saxophone is!
Hands down when it comes to the Conn bass market players and collectors are both looking for the golden era drawn rolled tone hole models like this horn and is a huge selling factor.
These bass Conn's rarely pop up. When they do pop up from time to time typically they are straight tone hole, earlier models that are just less desirable.
If you do find a Conn bass more times then none they are in a totally thrashed trashed condition, missing original necks, relacquered horns, total problem child horns, etc.
This saxophones is in great condition with gorgeous silk and satin factory silver plate with beautiful factory engravings, gold wash bell, original neck & a case.
This sax comes with a non original bass case. One side of the handle is broken but this is a heavy duty burly wood shell case that will be great for shipping or for an at home case. Bass cases are extremely expensive and this case is still great. You could purchase a brand new handle and drill it into the wood shell case and be fully up and running with a fully functional case pretty affordably.
While this is a very rare and special horn this sax is being sold as not working, parts category and will require a COA clean oil adjust or a full overhaul and pad job shall you choose. As a 100 year old piece of metal has its fair share of scratches, knicks, dings, fleabites, metal wear, tarnish marks, engraving wear, repair marks, and other anomalies associated with such an old antique.
The original thumb rest has been replaced with an old schools style loop thumb rest. It is non original to the horn but actually provides more support to hold on then horn with.
There is a second neck strap hook that was installed a couple of inches next to the original one. This is a popular modification that helps the horn sit with your neck strap a little bit better.
Please check out picture #12 to see added neck strap hook & added thumb rest.
All that being said this really is a nice example Conn Bass. Its worth noting this horn has particular nice Conn factory engraving and and logo's that look very very nice! Once this horn is cleaned at the tech the the silver is going to be popping bright!
While this saxophone is being sold as not working, its really best case scenario for a not working bass. At one point not that long in modern times someone put a great amount of work rebuilding this horn and fully overhauling it. You can see the necks cork and pads are not really used however the horn just sat around tarnishing and falling out of setup. When you play the horn everything is free opening and closing how its supposed to except from bottom low C and down keys will need to be adjusted, realigned and setup for leaks. The 95% of the horn that is playing feels great, the horn is easy blowing and super punchy direct. So please plan on bringing this horn to your tech, but if you want for minimal investment you can have this fully up and playing.
This saxophone is huge, the case is even bigger and the box that fits everything is massive! We have the proper box & shipping supplies to ship this with UPS, however once paid in full local pickup is highly encouraged on this one.
No mouthpiece is included in the sale. A true bass mouthpiece & bass reed is recommended and makes a big difference to fill up the horn over a baritone piece.
Its not everyday a silver plated Conn bass saxophone comes around. If you have been thinking about investing in a bass sax this horn is a great piece so please buy and pay confidently!
