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Beware, one can alwas buy a dog of a sax...

2K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  milandro 
#1 ·
Few years ago I attended some amateur sax classes in Amsterdam and one of the fellow students there had a magnificent French silver sax, a Dolnet Bel Air Alto.

I had a humble but nicely sounding Dixon alto, the usual boring copy of a modern Selmer, and every now and again exchanged saxophones with my friend while playing during our lessons. Well, I always loved that sax and after a few years (a couple of months ago that is....) decided it was time to buy myself something new...... Got on the internet and finally found the Dolnet of my dreams, sleeping peacefully somewhere in a small town nearby.

Full of excitement I drove there. I couldn't believe my eyes, the sax appeared to be of a very early vintage, the serial number would probably make it from around the beginning of the 1939-40.... 35XXX, well, the World War II years really, or, at most, just after WW II (Dolnet has very, very poor records of the production serial numbers).... .

The instrument sounded good (!) and looked very, very little used for its age..... I brought it to the trusted (!) technician which found it to be very good indeed and so I left for the season's holiday leaving my new baby in safe hands for a complete overhaul.

When I got back called my technician and asked if the sax came out alright , " yes" he said, "...and the intonation? " I asked, " perfect! " he said...... .

Well I took the sax the same day to a session and I couldn't play in tune , yes, it must have been my fault........new sax, new mouthpiece, too many things new...... . Got back to the technician who said that he had checked it alright and must have been me, I had to get used to the new sax.........

The next time I asked the session leader to take a look at my sax......he said after a while : " I know what the problem is.....your sax is a high pitch! " Couldn't believe it but after a number of trials and mainly errors, I had to capitulate......

Always bring a tuner when you go to buy a second hand old saxophone, now I know it, 25 dollars worth of tuner would have saved me plenty of money which a carelessly spent (threw out really).....B.T.W., the technician lost a good customer forever........:(
 
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#2 ·
milandro said:
Always bring a tuner when you go to buy a second hand old saxophone, now I know it, 25 dollars worth of tuner would have saved me plenty of money which a carelessly spent (threw out really).....B.T.W., the technician lost a good customer forever........:(
always bring a tuner when you buy ANY saxophone. Even on modern horns by the most consistant manufacturers (yamaha or yani) you're still gonna find a dud every once in a while.
 
#4 ·
on the high pitch dolnet matter

I have exchanded the Dolnet with a Bundy II which I will find a lot easier to sell on, in order to make up for the losses which I've suffered on the purchase of the saxophone and the rehauling......(yes I know it is not a good deal in absolute terms but it is if you think that I had the choice to keep the Dolnet and never play it with anyone........I am not that kind of collector), the sax in question is an alto and it is a Bel Air model although not marked this way (the only markings were Dolnet Paris made in France and the mentioned serial number, I believe there was no indication to high or low pitch).

I have exchanged it at an antique shop. Indeed, I told the new owner of the sax about the high pitch matter. He didn't mind ( he had never heard of high pitch problems........) since he keeps and sells saxophones as decoration items only and has a few more items which I suspect to be equally high pitched as my Dolnet was.

I have been playing this sax with various mouthpieces, it came with its own original Dolnet vintage mouthpiece (no markings for size, looked very "closed" though......) but I found that only playable with a very much thicker reed that I normally use (I am not one for very thick reeds, normally play on a 2, 2 1/2, various brands and types).
I got the best results with a Berg Larsen 95 SMS 2, the worst with a yamaha 5.

The whole thing was a tuner's nightmare. It was reasonably in tune with itself and played very nicely I might add it played with a very sweet sound.

Once I measured it on a tuner it was just about (can't remember the percentage) under being 1/2 a tone higher than a normal pitch (sounding A or rather F# on a alto), the difference increased or decreased as you went up or down the sax. I am not much of a player and compensated for the sorrow this Dolnet brought by buying a Martin RMC the Martin.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the Dolnet anymore, since I've exchanged it I got rid of them.

When compared to another alto the Dolnet high pitch is noticebly smaller and the Bore is also on the small side. Yesterday I've played on another Dolnet Alto 69XXX (not a Bel air , it had a different left pinky group and no F# key), a simple sax but very nicely tuned, absolutely spot on, the shop in Milan Italy, ( Centro Fiati e Percussioni in via Padova 12 in Milan) is a good shop although the owner was extremely unfriendly and refused to have me trying all his limited vintage amount of saxes (5) because he didn't have time to waste on me........so , as he said that, I was immediately convinced that I couln't waste my time on him and would never buy his overpriced saxophones (the Dolnet was about $1000) from such a rude and stupid salesman. Nice shop though as far as most european shops go........ pity there are such shop owners around.The owner and technician of this shop had never heard of high pitch saxophones produced after the 20ties.

Ok, be adviced to look and check with your tuners your Dolnet to be!
 
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