SML Baritone 10xxx SUPER Rare Original Lacquer Fresh Overhaul Gold Medal

Description

This is an interesting bari for a few different reasons. First of all, it is an SML. The highly-coveted SML bari is a rare beast, not often seen in the United States, or indeed anywhere. SML only made around 24000 saxophones over its long history, and of those, the vast majority seem to have been alto and tenor. My guess would be roughly 90% alto and tenor, 9% soprano and 1% baritone, based on what I have seen come up for sale over the past several years. My original SML advertisements just show a baritone-shaped outline rather than depicting the actual horn. That’s how rare these are.

This particular baritone is in fine condition, sporting Rev D / Gold Medal era keywork.  There is another one like this featured on saxpics.com that you can compare if you like. The horn is original lacquer and is in good condition. It had an expensive $1400 overhaul last year, followed by another very thorough ($500) setup by Matt Stohrer. It is now in quite good playing condition and should be ready to go for a long time. That’s $1900 worth of restoration, but hey, this may be one-of-a-kind, and it just does take a long time to get a vintage baritone all setup correctly, even if it is in good condition to start with.

Past mechanical issues include a dent removed from the upper bow and some other minor past dent work that is typical of most baritone overhauls, as well as some lacquer burns that you can see where one of the keyguards was resoldered. It’s in excellent condition considering that it’s a 50+ year-old baritone.

SML baris have an incredibly big, dark tone with a French core, which sounds great. Think vintage Conn, but with a more dense, I almost want to say ‘dark chocolate’ core to the tone. It’s a fun horn to play, and the intonation is pretty good. Definitely more like a Selmer from the 50’s or 60’s – good, pretty slotted in, but still requiring thought and some moderate voicing in the throat, which is no big deal if you are at all an experienced player. The keywork feels nice under the fingers – very balanced and pretty fast. The horn is pretty heavy, so you might want to wear it with a Saxholder strap or something like that. The strap hook could also be lower in my opinion.

If you want to be the only guy I know with an SML baritone, buy this. It will turn heads and definitely sound great for many many years to come. It should also continue to go up in value especially as people start to realized how rare these horns are.