- Joined
- Jan 3, 2009
- Location
- Kansas City
Beautiful sax. If you're not going to play it immediately, may I suggest you hang it from the ceiling and call it the Olds mobile?
aack !!Beautiful sax. If you're not going to play it immediately, may I suggest you hang it from the ceiling and call it the Olds mobile?
OldsSuper from http://forum.saxontheweb.net/archive/index.php/t-41525.html said:The Olds Super Sax history, from a former executive at F.E. Olds & Son.
The Kanstul family runs Kanstul Music, a producer of Brasswinds previously associated with Benge. Zig Kanstul keeps business hours, but other Kanstul's appear throughout the web site for the company. He started his career working for FE Olds in the early 50's as a technician reaching the top of the company and overseeing it's success and decline. Kanstul Music has an amazing history of its own.
An alternate explanation of the Olds Super saxes. According to Mr Kanstul the Olds Super sax was made in very numbers run just before the start of WWII in the Los Angeles F.E Olds Plan. The company hired a former Martin Sax employee who had moved to the LA area (I failed to note his name during our discussion) As a result of this hire Olds developed the Olds Super sax models intended for the professional market. This was part of the companies evolving product line.
The instruments were produced in small numbers untill WWII interrupted civilian production. Mr Kanstul thought less than 2000 were produced, something beyond a prototype run, and enough to build interest in the new line. Full production wasn't ever achieved, the tooling was put in storage. The serial numbers reflect the pre-production nature of the Olds Super line. The instruments were not produced for the WWII effort, or under government contract, but they were new west coast instruments at the beginning of the war.
The similarity to Martin instruments is explained by the former Martin employee who did the design and tooling. Based on the timeframe, the Olds Super has common roots with he Martin Committee II line. In order to avoid Patent problems, the tooling was Olds proprietary production hardware and much of the construction differs from Martin instruments. The keywork, tone hole shapes 8va mechanism, and guards were unique to the Super Olds line.
Post war Olds Saxes were all made for the European branch of Olds. (The more familiar Ambassador and Parisian models.) The US Olds plant never produced additional Olds Super saxes. The tooling was shipped to a sax manufacturer in Holland as Olds production ended. It was last known to be rusting in a container in a small plant in Holland. (I failed to note the name of the company.)
Given Olds popular brasswind productss, and their postwar outsourcing of saxes, the Olds Super sax wasn't important to the company. No one noted it's production, serial numbers, and it faded away. Mr. Kanstul considered the sax line as a product that never developed it's own market. Much like art, it becomes more interesting when the artist can't make more.
I see what you mean about the resemblance to Dolnet's wishbone octave mechanism Pete. Still, I'd like to see a clear view of the octave vents on the body tube, because in the pic of the Olds you linked to, it's hard to know for sure if there is more than the traditional 1.
The Olds looks like a horn that borrowed heavily from a number of different saxophone brands. I'm not sure how much Martin I see in it. I see a lot of European brands--not so much for the American ones.
The basic construction is all Martin to my eyes.
If all you have is nails, then what do ya do?
The only pic I'm really interested in is of the octave key mech. Just a bit more than just the part you hit with your thumb. Octave pips, please.
I like the octave key roller.
I like the octave key roller.
Hey, Carl: can you write down everything that's on the tone ring?