Description
This is a beautiful heavily gold-plated Conn New Wonder 1 Alto with deluxe portrait engraving. The portrait features Apollo, god of music, with his lyre. This horn has an overhaul done by Emilio Lyons and the pad work feels good under the fingers. I just got it tuned up by Matt Stohrer, and it is an exceptionally fine player.
Some horns are just ALIVE, and this one is. It responds almost before you blow, and the whole horn resonates in your hands. If you have only played modern horns with (overly?) stable “ribbed construction” then maybe you have never experienced a saxophone that was free to vibrate like this.
And the tone is to die for – wide, warm, expressive. If you don’t mind the vintage keywork (which I don’t) then this horn is the total package of beauty, rarity, and playability. Just the burnished gold alone would cost you many thousands to have done today, if you could even find someone to do it. Plus the engraving, plus the overhaul, plus the saxophone. When you start to think about the skilled labor and materials involved, it is unlikely that saxophones like this could ever be made again.
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