For sale is an incredible gold plated Selmer Mark VI low A alto saxophone!
This horn is a prime golden era Selmer serial #184,xxx!
This horn is 1 of 859 low A Selmer Mark VI altos ever produced! These horns are incredibly scarce, hard to find and this is a very very special gold plated example!
If there was ever a low A alto, this is the EXACT one you want! This is the low A Mark VI with American engraving + high F# key + that also has amazing GOLD PLATING!
The saxophone features absolutely gorgeous gold plating top to bottom! This horn is a bright shining golden nugget. The gold plating on this horn was done phenomenal on this horn. Although its hard to tell from still pictures, as you move the horn around under lights the horn shimmers and shines with a fantastic gold sheen! These pictures will only capture so much, but in the hands the horn is a glistening gold nugget!
This horn is an amazing playing saxophone!
This horn is a great sax that has JUST come out of the repair shop!
This horn is a fully overhauled sax with minimal use on the pads.
This horn has just had the full repair treatment!
This horn was completely broken down separated into pieces, fully cleaned, degreased, freshly oiled, fresh adjustment material as needed, pads cleaned, pads floated/adjusted, new neck cork, neck to body fitting, tightening/fitting/swedging of key work, hand polishing of gold plate and a full next level setup on the horn, etc!
Check out picture #24 the horn was just fully cleaned to the bone in our ultra sonic cleaner! We used a very light mix, no heat, short run time to keep the gold plating perfect. Most saxophones smell funny and taste nasty. THIS sax is a fully clean, fresh tasting, fresh smelling horn! This is not a cheap process to get done. The gold plated body and keys were then fully hand polished.
This sax is currently playing top to bottom fully setup with no clicks, clanks, metal on metal, extra noise, extra motion, the horns key work is leak free.
Saxophone repair work is not cheap these days. It can take a long time to get repair work done and not everyone can be trusted with a horn like this. This repair work is a huge bonus included and done right.
Most repair techs have never seen or worked on a low A alto sax to be fully trusted. This horn has had specialty setup to ensure the low A is mechanically leveraged with preferential setup to ensure low A is as easy as can be to play, finger and press down!
This horn had a serious amount of repair work to bring it back to life and is ready to play today! The fact that this horn has just had the full repair service treatment for this sale is a massive value add.
Although quite beautiful this horn is being sold as used and has its fair share of various scratches, knicks, dings, fleabites, patina, metal wear, lacquer wear, repair marks and other anomalies associated with an old used horn sax.
This horn includes NO good case with it. The case we received the sax with fits the saxophone perfectly however has no logos, branding and is fully falling apart trashed.
Assume no case is included. We will ship the sax in said case, it will make a perfect shipping container to keep the horn safe. But assume you will just throw the case in garbage and have to source a new case.
We want to take some time to talk about this horns restoration and overall value. The horn features a very high end expensive restoration that took place after the factory! Low A Selmers are extremely rare with only 859 ever produced. Its possible there were a small group of low A altos that were custom ordered as gold plate from the factory, its also possible there were 0 factory gold plated low As. While it may exist, there is nowhere on the internet that shows proof with proper modern photographs of an American engraved low a Mark VI fully gold plated. You will not find another of these sitting how this one sits. This horn was gold plated after the factory. The horns restoration was a very long pain staking and expensive restoration featuring a full overhaul with black pads & metal resonators, what looks like fresh engraving, a new base layer of silver plating with the gold plating on top! All proper gold plating starts with silver plating under.
Gold plating a saxophone is an insanely expensive and timely process. A repair tech has to take the sax apart and properly prepare each piece/part in a specific way to be sent to the gold platers. Theres really only 1 main place in the USA called Andersons Platers that handles this for 99.99% of people.
You are free to inquire, we have just spoken with them. Currently for gold plating an alto saxophone its $11,000 & tenor saxophone is $16,500! The low A alto has a longer bell with more surface area than a regular alto so the Low A plating falls somewhere between those prices. This price is JUST the plating, aside from all the shipping costs, engraving, plating prep, overhaul repair tech costs etc.
On one hand its possible to recreate this saxophone, but it would be a very costly and lengthy process. You would need to find a nice condition, nice body, worthy Low A to start with. You wouldn't want a cheap fully trashed horn. Lets say a Low A alto Mark VI is $6k - $15k + $13,500 gold plating + $2k - $5k for the overhaul + engraving + many shipping labels and your easily at a $20,000 - $30,000+ horn.
You cant just use any tech for a restoration job like this. You need a full expert who has prepared horns for gold plating and knows EXACTLY what they are doing. At the same time as the plating a full overhaul pad job is performed simultaneous. An expert guru repair tech like this is not charging $1k cheap prices for this type of job. These are the types of guys and projects that are $2000 $3000 $4000 $5000 $6000 in labor to complete the full overhaul and total project NOT including shipping/gold plating costs.
The best case scenario looks like this... Lets say you find a very low priced horn and low priced tech... Lets say a $5k horn + $13.5k gold plating + $1.5k overhaul + $350 engraving + $300 in shipping (tech to platers to engraver back to tech). If you could find an affordable low A and took all the time to get the restoration done the absolute best case scenario would be the full package costing you $20,650. You would need everything to go perfect for that to happen.
These days you are hard pressed to find a good low A for $5k. If the horn with sales tax costs more then 5k, if your repair tech charges more then $1500, if gold goes up in price, if shipping costs more, no questions asked the horn would easily cost $25,000 - $35,000 or more to complete. And it would take 6 to 12+ months of waiting for it to be complete.
All of this ramble to explain that this price is not lost on us! We understand this saxophone is by no means a small amount of money, but for what the horn is and how it sits its actually priced right in the pocket. To recreate this horn it would legitimately cost $30,000 if not more and there are many things that all have to fire off PERFECT for it to go well and come out looking like this!
Even when looking at the price of modern gold plated Selmers its insanely expensive. A modern Selmer Supreme alto in gold plat sells for $27,149 and gold plate tenor Supreme $31,499! And those saxophones have 0 collectible value right now, compared to a 1 of 1 Mark VI low A! Its the price and process of gold plating properly that just costs so so much.
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 are nearly impossible..
Overall this is a highly collectible great Mark VI low A thats ready to play out of the box! While not a small amount of money you would be hard pressed to find anything remotely similar sitting available for sale ready to buy.
Out of the 859 Low A altos ever produced the vast majority of them were either trashed and thrashed condition, relacquered, lost to time, possibly destroyed in building demolition or, fires, floods, natural disasters, or missing parts or pieces, pickups on the neck, patches on the neck, all sorts of weird problems!
Out of that pool there are only so many remaining in nice condition. Out of that pool theres only so many of them with American engraving that have the F# key. This horn is a needle in a hay stack find!
Most of these Low A horns are just locked away in collections only to ever see daylight when that player passes and then ultimately the horn gets locked up into a new players life time collection.
This saxophone is on sale at our Los Angeles, California saxophone showroom store and can sell at any point so if you have been looking for a Selmer low A please buy and pay confidently we will ship ASAP upon payment!