For sale is a unicorn gold plated Selmer Mark VI alto saxophone!
This horn is a prime golden era Selmer serial #57,xxx with its matching serial #57,xxx neck!
This sax is an extremely rare first year production 1954 Mark VI saxophone!
The saxophone features absolutely gorgeous gold plating top to bottom! This horn is a bright shining golden nugget. As you move the horn around under lights the horn shimmers and shines with a fantastic sheen! These pictures will only capture so much, but in the hands the horn is glistening!
This saxophone is an incredibly rare high F# key Mark VI. At this point in Selmer history very few Mark VIs had F# keys. You had to place a custom factory order to get this made, pay extra and wait for it to be produced.. so few ever came at this point. When you do see early 5 digits with F# keys its almost always on a Euro engraved horn, not American engraved like this!
The combination of first year Mark VI + American engraving + F# key is incredibly rare not even factoring in the rarity of the gold plate!
Its very important to talk about the gold plating on this horn. Finding a gold plated Selmer like this is an absolute mythical creature total needle in a hay stack find of a horn. The chances of a gold plated Selmer existing in this condition on this serial number, how this horn sits and coming to market is a nearly impossible find. Its truly baffling this horn even exists how it sits!
We are not endorsing the gold plate finish as either factory original or refinished gold plated after the factory.
The truth is we have not been with the horn for the last 70+ years to know the true history. What we do know is this horn has an amazing gold plated finish that looks the part and feels just right.
99.9% of gold plated Mark VIs are not original and are plated after the factory... SO if this horn is original gold plating its just an incredible find. Even if this horn was gold plated after the factory its just a phenomenal piece done with the highest quality gold work possible!
There are so few actual Selmer factory gold plated Mark VI 5 digits floating around.
Today in 2026 you wont find anywhere, any page sitting on the internet that showcases a confirmed, certified perfect reference factory gold plated 5 digit American engraved Mark VI with many high quality, detailed, up close, modern day taken pictures that you could even use to compare against. If you have that please let us know!
Once again we are not confirming this horn is or is not original, but the horn sure feels like the real deal holy field. The horn has just the right look, just the right feel.
The engraving is deep and etched just like you would expect! As you use your finger nail to scratch at the engraving it feels etched deep exactly as you would hope. We have never held a gold plated Mark VI that had this deep of etching to the touch! And no way this horn was re engraved either!
When you look and scratch at the Mark VI logo on the upper body tube it feels deep an proper to the touch. This specific area almost always loses it fidelity on re plates. Please check out picture #3 to see this area.
The cross hairs on the front neck look deep and proper to! Check this out on picture #6
The gold plating even has that older "gold nugget" look to it. Modern gold plating doesn't have the same lust or sheen to it that older vintage plating has. The vast majority of all gold plating happens at Anderson's plating. Those Anderson gold plated horns have a very specific sorta yellow look, yellowish gold. This horn does not have that, this horn has that gold nugget look! Take a look at picture #21, when you hold the key work all together you can really get a feel for how gold it looks!
To add to the speculation, when this horn was sold to the last owner in 2016 a very well known, respected, prominent dealer sold and advertised the horn as original gold plating. Please check out picture #24, we included a screen shot from that original 2016 sale. This horn was a very expensive horn back in 2016, but now with the price of gold even more valuable. Since this horn was last sold in the past decade the price of gold has gone through the roof raised some 225% 250%!
The fact that this horn has an F# key need to be circled back to and worth noting in regards to the gold plating. They weren't just willy-nilly producing first year Mark VIs with F# keys and American engraving like this. You had to specifically go out of your way to order that F# custom. The same thing goes with a Selmer factory gold plated horn. They werent just going to randomly produce a gold plated horn it had to be custom ordered fully arranged. When you consider for that F# key we know for nearly a fact that it had to be custom ordered, it then puts great credence to the fact that at the exact same time some one could have ordered it custom gold plated.
Once again for the 4th time we dont know if the horn is original plating or plated after the factory. We are simply translating what we have put together and the story feels great and the horn looks amazing! We would love to shout loud and proud that this horn is original, we just want to cover our basis since we dont actually know.
If this horn is truly a factory gold plated Selmer Mark VI 5 digit American engraved this would be true 1 of a kind horn. There could not have been many produced just like this and if there was another its not likely it would be in this great condition!
You would be hard pressed to find any first year Mark VI 57xxx in great condition!! Let alone finding any gold plate let alone a gold plate in this condition!
This horn is an amazing piece but still being sold as used and as a vintage sax has its fair share of various scratches, knicks, possible light dings, patina, metal wear, gold plating wear, gold plating tarnish, other used marks, etc.
On the horn, the neck is the only real place worth talking about that has some gold plating loss worth noting. This is actually a great thing! IF the horn was gold plated in say the 1990s or 2000s someone would had to play this horn ALOT to get that neck gold plating wear like we see. Most likely the neck has true honest 70+ years of the player taking the neck on and off with there bare hand that caused the gold plating to age in just the right proper way. Thats natural patina that doesn't happen over night!
Included with the horn is its factory Selmer case in nice condition with its outside logo still intact! The condition of the case is a testament to how much the horn was played and the true condition of the saxophone! These cases are worth a pretty penny by them self.
Included is the horns grenadilla wood end plug! This is also great condition. These are also worth a pretty penny by them self.
This saxophone is an amazing playing piece!
This horn has just come out of the repair shop! This horn is a fully overhauled horn with very little use on the pads. Horn appears to have been overhauled with vintage Selmer factory resonators!
This horn has just had the full repair treatment.
This sax was completely broken down all pieces separated, cleaned, degreased, freshly oiled, pads floated/adjusted, fresh adjustment material as needed, tightening fitting of key work, a full next level setup on the horn and a full polish/shine of the gold plating!
This sax is currently playing top to bottom with no clicks, clanks, metal on metal, extra noise, extra motion.
The horns key work is leak free, slamming and clamping down tight on the tone holes just right!
This saxophone was hand cleaned and hand polished! We have included pictures of the horn before & after. The before pictures show the horn was deeply tarnished, then after pictures show the horn bright and shiny polished gold!
Saxophone repair work is not cheap these days. It can take a long time to get done and not everyone can be trusted with a horn like this. The fact that this horn has just had a full repair servicing treatment for this sale is a massive value add.
Its extremely hard to take photos of a gold plated saxophone. Saxophones in general are shiny curved round objects that we use bright lights that reflect off. Compared to a photo, our eyes visually take in the sax and engraving in 3D as it moves past us way different then what a picture can show. Its always hard to capture a saxophones true beauty with a flat singular picture. Especially on this saxophone or gold plated horns! Gold plating adds an additional level of sheen, shine, gloss and glare that make them extremely hard to photograph. In the hands this saxophone comes alive with kinetic energy and movement as the light reflects/refracts against the gold plating. Its just something you have to see in the hands to fully understand!
Its important to note how impressively rare and valuable of a sax this is. Im sure some of you reading this are thinking whoa thats alot of money! By no means is this a small amount of money, but for what the horn is and its rarity the horn is actually priced right in the pocket to sell!
These days the price of both gold and Selmers have gone through the roof. If you wanted to buy a modern gold plated Selmer, the current gold plated Selmer Supreme is $24,679! Even at that price you have to place a custom order and wait for the factory to produce it. If you did buy a gold plated Supreme for the 25k, it would have no actual collectible value while on the other hand this gold plated Mark VI is a highly collectible 1 of 1 first year gold plated Mark VI that will always appreciate.
If a gold plated Selmer Supreme sells for 25k, in theory you would think this collectible Mark VI would be worth 30k 35k 40k? The number has to at least live above the price of the mass produced modern gold plated Supreme.
If you wanted to make your own modern day gold plated Selmer Mark VI its extremely costly. When getting gold plating done it must be accompanied by an extensive/expensive full overhaul and pad job. In order to plate a specialist repair tech must completely take the horn apart into pieces, all the pads ripped out. The horn needs to be fully stripped and buffed of all lacquer and taped up properly to be ready for plating. The horn needs to show up to the platers 100% ready to be plated, thats in piece, stripped, buffed, tapped. Anderson platers does majority of the band instrument plating for every repair tech, company and manufacture. We have just spoken with them and got a quote for gold plating with todays gold price. The plating alone is $11,000 for alto sax and $16,500 for tenor sax!
This $11,000 gold plating is JUST the gold plating cost. In addition you need to pay for a full expert overhaul from a repair tech capable of doing this which is easily an additional $3000 $4000 $5000 overhaul. This process also takes an extremely long time for each party to do there part/work, then the shipping receiving back and forth etc.
$11,000 gold plating cost + $3000 restoration + a $5k to $10k Mark VI horn = a $19,000 to $24,000 for a gold plated Mark VI. After all of that high cost you would still be left with a modified after the factory saxophone.... So regardless if this horn is factory plated, or gold plated after the factory this is an extremely valuable piece. If it is factory plated sky's the limit!
This horn is a top .000001% upper echelon investment grade saxophone in fantastic playing condition. If you have dreamed about a gold plated Selmer THIS IS THE ONE! Once this horn is sold chances of another one of these ever showing up to market is nearly impossible..
This horn is on sale at our Sax Stable Los Angeles, California saxophone showroom store and can sell at any point so if you have been looking for an investment grade Selmer please buy and pay confidently we will ship ASAP upon payment!