Untitled Document
     
Advertisement Click to advertise with us!
     

Be careful what you pray for (bid on)

jbtsax

Distinguished Member
Distinguished Member
I made a low ball offer on this very old Vito alto and the seller surprised me by accepting it. It is marked "Made in USA" and has the serial number V-1697. There are some interesting features such as the knurled tenon receiver, the pearls in the keyguards, the pivoting octave mechanism using hinge tubes and pivot rods, and the shape of the thumb octave lever.

Does anyone have any information on these post made in France and pre made in Japan Vitos?

Bellengraving.jpg


Thumboctave.jpg


Octaverockermechanism.jpg


Necktenonsocket.jpg


Bellkeys.jpg


LHTable.jpg


Leafengraving.jpg
 
Well, that one's not French :).

Off the top of my head, it was something like, "Vito Pascucci got a controlling interest in Leblanc at some point and transferred all Vito production to them." YMMV.

Personally, I've never seen anyone use a Vito sax that old. Because there were so many iterations of Vito horns and they were made by so many companies, I think you can at least discount the stories of, "Really average student horns" in your case. There seems to be an awful lot of detail on that horn for it to be "student quality."

Doctor Sax has a whole bunch of info on Vito horns. He's even got a little featurette where he talks about the Nogales-made Conn and Vitos. I'd think he'd be your best bet!

According to the info on Dr. Sax's website, I think your horn is about 1959 vintage.
 
Back
Top Bottom