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A stencil is a saxophone made by a major manufacturer but with a different name on it. Music stores, schools and other businesses would order a number of saxophones from a major saxophone maker and have their name put on, instead of the company that made them. A major manufacturer could also create separate brand names to compete in certain markets or may have purchased a smaller company and kept the name. Whatever the reason and for the most part these stencil horns were built with many of the features of their parent company, but the over-all quality rarely equalled that of the manufacturer's name brand models.
Lyon & Healy Serial Number and year. Hey there, hope you can help me. I'm looking for the year of Sax of my dad. It's a Lyon & Healy 'inspiration' and has the number C9080L.
The major saxophone companies that made stencils were Conn, Buescher, Martin. Selmer, Holton and York. Some of these companies were purchased in time and became stencils themselves. There are many ways to tell if a saxophone was produced by a certain company. Tone hole construction, G# key cluster design, key guard design, key layout, octave mechanism type, serial number markings and more. Speaking of serial numbers most stencils did not follow the parent companies serial number range so it is hard to tell the year it was made. Unfortunately, little, to no, documentation is available for these instruments.
This list is not all inclusive. There may be a Conn stencil with a name of any music store or small company that may be sitting in someone's attic somewhere waiting to be discovered. This list is constantly growing, but at least it's a starting point if you see a sax you are interested in and want to know who probably made it. You will notice that some stencils like Wurlitzer and Lyon & Healy are listed more than once. This is because at one time or another they were made by more than one manufacturer.
Buescher Made
- American Artist
- American Capitol
- Artist
- Bundy
- Cafaro Special
- Carl Fischer
- Crusader
- Elkhart
- Elkhorn
- Getzen
- Harwood Professional
- Legionnaire
- Lyon & Healy
- Royal Artist
- Sherwood
- Silvertone
- The Yankee
- USA
- Vega
- Vocotone
- Weymann
- Windsor
- Wolverine
- Wurlitzer
Conn Made
- Abbott Premier
- American Hagar
- American Perfecto
- American Triumph
- Bandmaster
- Bruno
- Cavalier
- Cole & Dunas
- Continental Colonial
- Elkhart
- Grand Opera
- Gretsch
- Hamilton
- Harry Pedler
- Harwood
- Horace
- Jenkins
- Kalashen's Kleartone
- La Pacific
- Lefleur
- Liberty
- Olympian
- Pan American
- Perfection
- Pride
- Sears & Roebuck
- Selmer (US)
- Supertone
- Symphony
- Vega
- Velvetone
- Werlein Special
- Wurlitzer
- Xcelo
- York
Holton Made
King Made
- American Standard
- Gladiator
- Vega
Martin Made
- Abbott Premier
- American Artist
- American Perfection
- American Professional
- Beaufort American
- Bruno
- Commander
- Champion
- Colonial
- Concertone
- Couturier
- Dick Stabile
- Dorn & Kirschner
- Gary
- Gold Star
- Harmony
- Honercomb
- Horace
- Indiana Band Instrument Company
- Kingston
- Knickerbocker
- Lyon & Healy
- Lyric
- Manhattan
- Melody Master
- Oliver Ditson
- Pedler
- Perfacktone
- Reynolds
- Sherwood
- Standard Artists
- Supertone
- Symphony
- Tempertone
- Wurlitzer
- Vega
Malerne Made
Selmer Made
- Adolphe
- Deville
York Made
Keilwerth Made
- Couf Superba 1 & 2
- Royalist
- Conn DJH
- Buffet
- Edgeware
- Marco
- Vincent Albert
- Martelle
- Winsall
- Bundy Special
- Armstrong
- Heritage
- King Tempo
- Champion
- Calvert Deluxe
Keilwerth 'Copiers'
(Amati, Dörfler & Jörka, B&S)
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This is just a small, and hardly comprehensive, collection of the many stencils made by Martin.
Martin stencils are extrordinarily interesting for one major reason: many are exceedingly rare and are quite valueable. Some, like the Dick Stabile model, below, are MORE sought after and valuable than other Martin models.
Lyon & Healy
Artist Model Perfect Curved Soprano ('Semi-Curved Soprano')
1925 to 1928
The question is: when is a stencil not a stencil?
The standard definition of a STENCIL is a horn made by a major manufacturer for another company or storefront. On receipt of the horn, the 2nd party would literally take a stencil and engrave their own design on the horn.
Stencils are generally variations on the major manufacturer's pro horns, but lack certian features (for example, Conn stencils lack rolled tone holes), were made with older tooling (for example, Buescher Elkharts were made with the Buescher True Tone tooling -- which was rendered obsolete about 10 years earlier), or suffered from poor quality control.
The Lyon and Healy horns are different.
Lyon and Healy DID make some of their own horns in the early 1900's, including saxophones, but they couldn't really compete with the big names, so they decided to stencil some horns, but a little differently: they decided to DESIGN some of their own horns and have other companies make them.
The Perfect Curved soprano was designed by Lyon and Healy and sold (primarily) under their Artist brand name. These horns were produced in two 'series': the first was a unique looking but 'totally unplayable' version made by Holton that featured a detachable bell (and is currently so rare as to be non-existant) and the second is the model shown here made by Martin.
This horn has considerably better intonation than the Holton-made version, but is still very hit-or-miss in general -- in other words, the horn the Perfect Curved was patterned after, the HN White King Saxello, is a much better horn, but the Perfect Curved soprano is worth more (around $3500 US).
For more information on these horns and Lyon and Healy, take a peek at the Vintage Saxophones Revisited columns in the May/June 1989 and the November/December 1997 editions of The Saxophone Journal magazine.
Dick Stabile Models
1935(?) to 1945(?)
This is one of those few instances where the stencil is better than the original.
The Dick Stabile model is probably the most sought after Martin model. It has extremely good intonation and has that distinctive Martin sound, plus it has many of the features of the Handcraft Committee and the keywork of the Handcraft Standard models.
I have not been able to pin down the exact production years of this horn, but I'd assume production started around the time of the Handcraft Committee and was finished before the introduction of the Handcraft Committee II.
Olds Super
1941(?( to 1945(?)
Martin was contracted as a stencil supplier to a wide variety of companies (Pedler, Lyon & Healy, etc.). However, most of the stencils Martin made were for the FE Olds company. However, the best of the Martin-made stencils is unquestionably the Super model.
Here's some notes from an eBay ad:
Olds (famous for its brass instruments) was awarded a government contract to supply instruments, including saxophones, to the military during the 2nd World War. A large number went down with a supply ship in the Mediterranean, and very few of the saxes survive today. There is some speculation that the instrument pictured here, with it's low serial number, may have been a pre-production model - either made to demonstrate the factory's capabilities to the government, or because Olds was trying to break into the professional sax market. Several unusual features can be seen in the photos.
The silver tone ring (like those on [Olds'] brass instruments) reads: 'Super Olds made by F. E.Olds and Son, Los Angeles, California U. S. A.'. [tone rings were also found on the Buescher 400 'Top Hat and Cane' and Super 400 models]
The B and Bb keys are on the left side of the bell. The keys resemble flute keys, with their dimpled centers. The resonators are 'rivet' style.
Some of the features resemble pre-war Martin Saxophones: beveled tops of tone holes; all keywork, tone-holes and body joints silver-soldered.1
Some folks have questioned whether Martin actually made these horns because of some of the bizarre-looking features and odd keywork. I think it's definite that Martin made them, however, it may be that they didn't design them (see above on the Lyon & Healy horns). Here's why I believe that Martin made these horns:
- There are only two makes of saxophone that I've ever seen with bevelled tone holes: early Couesnons and all Martins.
- FE Olds has a long history of stencilling saxophones. Examples: the Parisian (from Pierret), the Parisian Ambassador (from Beaugnier), the Opera (from Buffet), the Ambassador (which says on the bell 'Made exclusively for FE Olds' and was produced by several different companies).
- FA Reynolds worked at FE Olds. Reynolds went on to form Reynolds Music Company, which was in turn bought by Olds. (Paul) Richards Music Company, then bought Martin around 1961, and then Olds merged with Norlin music (FA Reynolds) in 1964.
- EJ Gillespie, the designer of the Committee, patetened saxophones for Martin and trumpets for Olds -- in the early 1950's.
- Many other features resmble other Martins: left hand bell keys, keyguards, etc.
No, not conclusive evidence, but terribly persuasive circumstantial evidence.
Reynolds Models
1961 to 1964
These horns were Reynolds-labelled versions of the Committee ('The Martin ___'), with moderately different keywork and engraving. IMHO, I like the engraving on the Contempra model MORE than on the Committee.
Confusing note: Reynolds liked the Contempra model name so much, they recycled it. In the late 1960's, after Martin was purchased by Wurlitzer, Reynolds stencilled a horn from SML and used the same name.