King Zephyr Special Alto Near Mint Good Pads! 266751

This is about as nice an original lacquer later example of a King Zephyr Special alto as I have seen. This comes from the collection of Theo Wanne. (Not the one Theo recently lost.)  My main alto is a Zephyr Special, as is Matt Stohrer’s, and Theo loves and collects them as well. They are among the best sounding altos ever made, and they just do everything pretty well. The tone is warm, powerful, medium spread, and dark and velvety. Not dark like a Conn though – more focus, more projection, and more of a ringing set of overtones, where a Conn is a bit more spread and fat. It’s just an extremely pleasant tone that you get on these. Every single one I’ve ever sold has gone to a buyer who was thrilled with the sound. The keywork is not modern – it’s ‘light flute-like action’ as King described it in its original ads from the 30’s. Not heavy and snappy, but light like a flute, and fairly small amount of key travel to close a tone hole. Intonation is good with a Meyer or really whatever you want to use, though flexible compared to modern horns. You can bend notes around how you want, for better or for worse.

These are among the most beautiful saxophones ever produced as well. Hand engraving, pearls everywhere you touch, solid silver double socket neck. They’re great. And this one has almost all of its original lacquer intact, which is pretty incredible.

If you want to join the Zephyr Special club this would be a great way to do it. It’s very playable now, and still priced very affordably compared to modern altos, with a tone like nothing else!