Klarinet Archive - Posting 000621.txt from 2000/01

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Evette-Schaeffer sax (was: [kl] Good Middle School Bass Clarinet?)
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 01:47:40 -0500

Kenneth Wolman wrote,
>Speaking of old saxes, my girlfriend's kid got picked for the jazz band in
his middle school, and they told him to go home and learn to play tenor sax.
They gave him one of the school horns, an old but very elaborately carved
looking thing with half the laquer worn off and the springs in questionable
shape. I asked him what kind it was and he made out "Evette-Schaefer" in the
bell. Is this what turned into the lower-priced end of Buffet or was it a
separate concern? I didn't think to ask him for the serial number to get
some idea of how old it might be.>

Bill Hausmann wrote,
>>The sax is obviously related to Buffet in the same way as the
Evette-Shaeffer clarinet line, a lower-level, but still decent instrument.
Even the cheap ones used to have decent engraving back in the old days when
they took pride in their work. >>

I agree with Bill about the WWII-vintage Buffet Evettes. The current Evettes
and Evette-Schaeffers are student quality saxes, made in Asia. Ken, I think
you're experienced enough with instruments to identify the look of that type
of sax, even if it's prematurely aged from student abuse. But if the sax
appears to be genuinely old, with a logo that doesn't say "Buffet" anywhere,
it might be something far better than any of these. From what you describe,
this sax might be one of the earliest Evette- Schaeffers.

Evette-Schaeffer and Buffet logos on saxes have a long and somewhat
complicated ring-around-the- rosy history together that differs somewhat from
the clarinet history (I have seen Evette-Schaeffer saxes, Buffet saxes,
Evette-Schaeffer Buffets, Buffet Evette-Schaeffers and Buffet Evettes -- and
recently I heard a rumor -- stress *rumor* -- about new Buffet Schaeffers!),
but around the turn of the previous century, saxes came out with the
Evette-Schaeffer logo and no Buffet logo. Those were top-quality,
professional instruments. The contrabass sax player in the Nuclear Whales
plays an Evette-Schaeffer contrabass made in, I believe, 1905, if memory
serves.

The one thing that gives me pause in your description is, "half the lacquer
worn off" -- AFAIK, the original Evette-Schaeffers were not lacquered at the
factory. They came in bare brass, silver plating or gold plating over
silver. (Gold plated directly onto brass will peel right off like tape.
Therefore the factory would plate the brass sax with silver, then plate the
gold onto the silver.) The lacquer on this one might be an after-market job
(lots of that around -- manufacturers started lacquering in the 1920s,
lacquer got popular and owners of older saxes got fed up with polishing) or
it might mean the sax was made later than the best years of Evette-Schaeffer.
Maybe you just haven't found the Buffet logo yet.

But if that old horn is indeed an early Evette-Schaeffer, it might be a real
gem, if it's not too badly abused and if someone cleaned it up and gave it
some TLC. It might also prove to be High Pitch, alas, in which case it won't
play on pitch with that jazz band no matter how sharp the kids tune, unless
they're all playing vintage instruments, too. (Check to see if the area
around the serial number also has the letters "HP" for High Pitch. If it
says "LP", that's Low Pitch, a@-----. The sax might be too old to have
these letters, so presence of "HP" means the sax is definitely High Pitch,
but absence of the letters doesn't necessarily mean it's not High Pitch.) A
sax that age might also need a vintage mouthpiece to play in tune. (That's
true of my Conns made in the 1920s.)

For any sax I spot at a flea market or a yard sale, if I don't have my
notebook with me or don't have dates for that brand's serial numbers, I get a
rough-and-ready estimate of the age from the keywork. Look at the lowest
keys on the bell. Is is a "split bell" with keys on both the left and right
sides? If so, it's an old sax. That configuration was popular from about
1915 through the early 1930s. No saxes have been made that way since WWII.

Are there keys only on the left side of the bell (the side against your leg
in playing position)? That configuration also indicates an old sax. Adolphe
Sax made his instruments that way in the late1800s. Other manufacturers
continued that tradition at the same time that some started to convert to the
"split bell." Then, just to confuse things, Selmer and some other companies
that had manufactured saxes with a split bell began making saxes with "leg
side" bell keys again in the 1930s. But, if you have a sax set up that way,
it's probably pre-WWII. Today's saxes have all the bell keys on the right
(with the sax in playing position), on the "air side" where the cage over the
keys can't rub uncomfortably on the player's leg or body.

Does a tenor or alto sax have keywork only to high E-flat? If so, it's very
old. Bass and bari saxes often had keywork only to high E-flat, even into
the late 1920s, but most altos and tenors had keywork to F by about 1922.
However, some saxes had keywork to F earlier than 1920, some even earlier
than 1900, so while *lack* of that key indicates an alto or tenor sax is
probably pre-1922, *presence* of the key doesn't prove it's younger than
that.

Next level: Does it have keywork to F, but no front F? If there's a side F
but no front F, then it probably dates from the 1920s or early 1930s. If it
has both side F and front F, it could be from the 1920s through 1930s (big
range there -- saxes were made both with and without front F throughout that
period, though the front F gradually took over as a standard feature), but
could be later, too.

But does it have side F, front F *and* a high F# key? If so, then it's a
post-WWII sax. However, many modern saxes *still don't* come with the high
F#, an option many players don't like, so *lack* of high F# doesn't prove
it's an older sax, even though *presence* of the high F# does prove it's
modern.

Hope this helps without being too confusing!
Lelia

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