Wurlitzer American Saxophone

[Donn]

You might try a web search.

My guess is that Wurlitzer serial numbers might, in theory, tell you when it was made, and who made it, but that no one has taken the trouble to put this information together in any usable form. As far as I know, a Wurlitzer label guarantees that the instrument's value depends entirely on how it plays.

[SousaSaver]

rolled tone holes?

I'll check in the morning, but it has the original neck and what looks to be reeds, holder for reeds, case, mouthpiece, and neck-plug-thing. Of course this is quite foreign to me.
It definitely needs new pads and cork and some adjustments to get the keys working better. But not bad for 45 bucks

Post some photos. We can get this figured out quick

[Donn]

Well, one thing that ebay saxophone looks a lot like is a Conn Wonder C Melody. Or a Buescher True Tone. The pictures I'm looking at (http://www.saxpics.com) are very similar. The Buescher's neck has some bracing.

C melody was an idea that went along with the goal of popularizing the saxophone. Like guitar, piano, maybe accordion, folks would have them around to play for fun. (This was before TV, which generally replaced fun of this sort with passive entertainment.) The C melody player could look over the piano player's shoulder and read the song melody. I don't know that it's really historically connected with Sax's notion of a separate C and F family for orchestral use, but coincidentally it did to some degree follow the outline in that its proportions can be on the narrow side, which supports the upper range with a sweeter sound. (Not sure this ebay model exemplifies that, though.) Not widely used by recording artists, but notable players are Rudy Wiedoeft and Frankie Trumbauer.

There's a lot of hate out there, mostly about difficult intonation. The cause of this may be mainly the mouthpieces - of course, you're doomed if you try to use a tenor mouthpiece - but whatever, they're usually in great shape because they weren't played much, and yet it's hard to give them away.

No assertions presented in this article are intended to be taken as facts. Information taken from the web may be hazardous. Use at your own risk.

[iiipopes]

Well, one thing that ebay saxophone looks a lot like is a Conn Wonder C Melody. Or a Buescher True Tone. The pictures I'm looking at (http://www.saxpics.com) are very similar. The Buescher's neck has some bracing.

And do you know how many people there are that still know how to play a C melody saxophone that you can fit into a telephone booth?
Answer: all of them.

[Donn]

And do you know how many people there are that still know how to play a C melody saxophone that you can fit into a telephone booth?
Answer: all of them.

I'm not sure I followed that - I'm sure a C melody would easily fit into any phone booth, if phone booths still exist? Anyway, saxophone skills are reasonably transferable, so this treat is not reserved for those 100 year old gents who learned the instrument in its day. Poking around a little on the web, I didn't run into anything like Frankie Trumbauer's work on "Singin' the Blues", but seems to be a few people out there making it happen. Even what appeared to be a current production (i.e., Chinese) C melody.