Conn Naked Lady 4M Curved Soprano Silver 245xxx Rare!

Description

Well, well, well. Look what we have here! If you are deep into vintage saxophones, then you will know that this is a special one. This is a very rare ‘naked lady’ engraved Conn curved soprano that dates to around 1931, and may have actually sold quite a bit later than that. I have only seen a few later Conn curved sopranos out there, and they all sport a few distinctive intonation improvements and neck angle changes that help you to play the horn with the greatest ease. This horn has virtually all of its original silver plate intact, and it has a recent repad done in Chicago, followed by an extensive Aaron Barnard setup/adjustment to get it into top playing condition. The low C and Eb keyguards have been resoldered (hard to sell, because it was done well) and a small dent was removed by Aaron near the neck receiver ring. The gold wash in the bell is still present, and together with the bell engraving, it gives this horn a really stunning look. I actually have the matching alto and tenor right now too, so if you happen to collect matching sets of things, you would be most of the way there if you get them all now!

Tonally, this is another of those sopranos that really sounds like nothing made today. It has great warmth, an enormous tone, great intonation and is lots of fun to play.

The big advantage of curved soprano compared to straight is that you can hear yourself. (It’s also better for recording.) The disadvantage is that you have to get used to the compact nature of the instrument, which does take a few weeks of loving dedication to do. Conn seems only to have made curved sopranos from 236k on, so any 4M soprano after that is going to be curved.

If you are interested in having horns that are both world-class players AND that are collectible and super-rare (and likely to become more so over time) then this is just the sort of horn you would want, because it does both things so well. It includes the nice original Conn case in good condition! This is the kind of thing you want to jump on if you want it, because you can always sell it later, but you cannot buy another one of these anywhere.