Buescher 400 Top Hat and Cane Tenor 305xxx

Description

This is a gorgeous, all-original Buescher 400 Top Hat and Cane tenor. It is in excellent original condition with all parts intact and original case. There are no past repairs and a picky description would mention only a few very small dings on the front of the bow This is a tenor that has NOT been played very much at all since it was new. It comes from the collection of a guy who has been treasuring it for some time and finally decided to stick to the other horn he bought from me and sell this. It even plays pretty well as is on the original factory setup. The original neck looks great with no past damage. It is very unusual to see one of these horns in such nice shape.

These 400 tenors are probably the finest saxophones produced by the Buescher company and represent the pinnacle of its several decades of saxophone development. Here’s an excerpt from Buescher’s product announcement when it first released this model: “Our Greatest New Model Announcement”

For more than a half a century, Buescher True Tone has been a (spearhead) of supremacy in band and orchestra instruments. Buescher Saxophones are world famous for beauty of tone — same of playing. This lends significance to the announcement of two new Saxophones — the finest ever created by Buescher — the new “400” Alto and Tenor.

… For many years the goal of the Buescher Company has been to create the perfect Saxophone. In the “400” models, we believe we have achieved that goal. After you are ready, try a new “400” we are confident you will agree that here at last has been created the perfect saxophone.

Without hesitation — and after due reflection on all the great advancements the Buescher Company has made in the past, I say: The “400’s” mark the greatest new model announcement in our entire history.

Tonally, these horns are beloved for their unique combination of a rich, bold, distinctively American saxophone sound that is basically medium between bright and dark that gets punchy and brighter when pushed. It is smooth and mellow with a more closed mouthpiece and plays with a warm round tone for classical, with especially accurate intonation. It works equally well for jazz, rock, or commercial music, with a big, aggressive, wailing kind of power that comes with a combination of a higher baffle mouthpiece and pushing more air through the horn. I really like these tenors. As a super-deluxe model, they also stand to continue to go up in value in coming years, so the time to grab a nice one like this is now.