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1911 H.N. White King Cleveland

2K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Steve D 
#1 ·
Danny here:

Now restoring a lovely early Cleveland King C from 1911. Scored it with original case and neck with matching serial number 37,XXX. The seller said it did not play, but I suspected otherwise and on arrival I found a mouthpiece jammed up in the body tube. It plays decently on the current pads but I am going to give it really nice new pads. It came to me fresh and dusty, with that great 103 year old C-Melody smell. Unfortunately the original front F mechanism is gone (but the key with pearl is there!) so I will have to fabricate a front F lever. Also the low Eb key guard took a good knock sometime in the last century and will need to be straightened. Those of you who know about early Kings might be wondering how I came up with 1911:

-I plotted the existing data from 1893 up till 1945 (Around 1945 it visibly skews on a plot. Must be due to WWII demand for brass)
-I applied a polynomial regression of best fit to the data.
-I calculated the equation Y = 3.396X[SUP]3[/SUP] - 19,400.032X[SUP]2[/SUP] + 36,942,177.16X - 2,349,849,462.444

Feel free to use my equation to estimate the year of pre 1915 King Saxophones, it fits the existing data extremely well on a plot. It maps serial number as a function of time, not the other way around. Its probably not very reliable around the edges of years, but if you calculate the middle of a year (as I did calculate 1911.6 with my sax being 37,XXX) it is safe to say it was made in that year.

This is the oldest C-Melody I have ever played and I can already tell its going to wail. It has HUGE sound, very loud compared to my other horns. Intonation is a little different, but I will be able to master it with some hours in the shed. The bell reads "King, Made By, The H.N. White Co., Clevd., O." I am quite happy to have found such a great early King in such fabulous condition.

Cheers, I will post a thread with restoration photos soon.

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#3 ·
I am not sure if anyone is sure about King numbers, I was using saxophone.org to determine my info. Thanks for the sites I will dig into this more!
 
#5 ·
Your horn looks a lot like mine which has serial #63,XXX and I figured was made in 1919, but that could be wrong. A few days ago I listened to a friend play his Buescher from about the same era, and then my king. They are definitely different horns. Glad you found yours and are giving it a new lease on life.

Steve D
 
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