The Vintage Saxophone Gallery -

Presented by USA Horn

The Selmer Adolphe Sax

Around 1928, Selmer bought the Adolphe Sax manufacturing plant from Adolphe-Edward Sax (the inventor of the saxophone's son) and produced a line of saxophones -- released primarily in the UK -- as a "complement" to the Super line of saxophones (s/n 11951 to 18700, and possibly up to the first Balanced Action horns [s/n 21751]).

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    There are at least two versions of these horns:
  • There are approximately 1300 horns that are essentially Adolphe-Edward Sax horn bodies with Selmer keywork -- particularly evident in the G#/C#/B/Bb pinky cluster. (It is possible that Sax himself worked on some of these horns.) They also have engraving nearly identical to the Adolphe-Edward horns.
  • The second version is essentially a Super with different engraving and slightly different keyguards. I'd be interested in seeing the octave key mechanism on these horns, but I'd assume that it is a bit less complicated than that of the Supers, particularly the "Cigar Cutter" version of the Super.
  • In both cases, these horns have a Sax serial number on the bell and a Selmer serial number under the low D key or on the body near the thumbrest.

    In any event, these horns were slightly more expensive than other pro horns available at the time, but were not as expensive as the top-line Selmer models. This leads me to believe that these horns were an attempt at cornering the "intermediate" market. This is possible, especially condsidering there is a "successor" to this model: the Pennsylvania.



