King SilverSonic Tenor With Full Pearls 1952 Relacquered Nice Shape! 328630

This is one of the 200 or so King ‘Full Pearls SilverSonics’ that were made (or Full Pearled SilverSonics if that’s how you learned it). This is a ‘Series II’ Full Pearls, which is the version with the later and more desirable keywork. This is the first one of these I have had for sale on the website in many years, and it is in quite good condition. It has been relacquered, and there were some dings removed before the new coat of lacquer, so you can see some waviness in the reflections around the bow area in a few places, but it’s nothing serious. The horn looks original on first inspection, because it has seen minimal buffing and the engraving is still very sharp, even on the bell key cups, which tend to be buffed harder than the bell engraving. The bell engraving almost looks untouched, and the little bit of gold missing from years of use could be restored if you want (I can point you in the right direction and arrange things for you in that case.) But I would leave it as is, as it looks great already. The pads are older, so it’s time for your favorite saxophone repairer to get this horn back to blowing the walls down again. These horns are kind of the ultimate saxophone collectible because they have both qualities that usually are mutually exclusive – they’re the best version of the Super 20 that King made, and they’re also ridiculously rare at the same time. In the early 50’s King was focused on selling brass bell Super 20 saxophones, and it seems you had to know somebody to get them to make you a SilverSonic, so it rarely happened. I don’t know of any other example of a saxophone that is the best of its class and similarly rare. The Conn saxophones in F are rare and are fun to play, but they’re not like THE best saxophone Conn ever made (that would be the rolled tone holes 10M/30M). The Mark VI C melody is similarly rare, but also not the best C melody ever made, nor particularly outstanding just in itself. But these Series II King Full Pearls Silversonics should please the person who wants both a really rare, collectible investment sort of saxophone, and the person who wants a great playing horn. Anyway, to get back to this horn, it has the original case in nice shape, and the original solid silver neck with matching serial number, also in excellent condition. Also on the website at the moment is the most perfect brass bell Series II Super 20 tenor I’ve seen. If either of these rare Kings drops of the site suddenly, it’s because I ended up being able to afford to keep them. Until then…

Only one available!