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Cleveland 615

5K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  DarrellMass 
#1 ·
I’ve been playing a 1934 Selmer Radio Improved tenor, (18XXX), for the last few years. It’s a great horn and with a vintage Ben Davis metal mouthpiece on it I love it.

It was time for me to get a backup to give the Selmer a break, especially when it goes to the tech for service. I didn’t want a modern tenor so I looked around eBay, Gumtree, Preloved and others and eventually came across a King Cleveland 615 for what I thought was a fair price and I bought it. The serial number is 624XXX and I've not had much luck getting a year for it - anyone help with that please?

It needed a bit of TLC when it arrived. I don’t think it had seen a drop of oil since it left the factory, a few of the corks and felts were missing and it had no neck cork. Surprisingly the leak light showed only R1 leaking which I managed to re-seat so I recorked and refelted where necessary and put the Ben Davis on it with a 2¾ Gonzalez reed.

Wow! I’m not going to say it’s better than the Selmer, it’s just a totally different sound. Really smooth dark tone, but big and broad with it, and a gorgeous lower register. In fact the bell notes on this horn are the easiest of any tenor I’ve played with super soft low B and Bb a breeze. OK the left pinky table’s a bit odd with low B especially hard to hit, but I’ll get used to it. Then I tried it with a Selmer Soloist C** HR mouthpiece and it still had the same dark tone but I felt more in control than with the Ben Davis. I prefer the Soloist mouthpiece on it.

So the old Selmer is going to the tech for a few days’ well-earned R&R and I’m going to be on the 615 for a while. I’m really looking forward to playing this horn in the big band I play with. The other tenor player in the band is a dyed-in-the-wool Mk VI man who plays a 1960s Mk VI. I’ll get him to have a blow on the 615 and it’ll be interesting to see what he makes of it.
 
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#2 ·
Yup. The Clevelands are great horns...your 615 being a renamed King Cleveland. They never much changed the body or neck specs of these, just the keywork design.

Their tone and blowing response are their high-points. They DO sound huge, and a nice balance of focus and spread.

The keywork is usually the issue with the Eastlake made models. The keywork, ironically, was more responsive and comfier on the older Cleveland made ones. So most folks might not be blown away with the feel of the 615...but they are very respectable players.
 
#5 ·
Yup, gotta extrapolate a little bit.

http://www.hnwhite.com/Serial Numbers.htm

A 1970 is in the 455,XXX zone.

King got bought by UMI in '80 by Henkin; although he continued the S20, the Zeph and Cleve 613/15's seem to vanish; towards the end there a King second-shelf model appeared (660) which was the same horn as a Conn 20M...and of course, the infamous Super 21 Alto was also a Henkin-era invention (basically a Conn 21M with an underslung neck and a lotta blingy engraving).
We know that the Super 21 had serials in around 720,XXX - 730,XXX zone.

In '84, Henkin got bought out by UMI - at which point the models and serial numbers completely changed. No more S20, no more S21, no more 660.

We know the last S20's had serials as high as around 850,XXX....that would'a been up to around '84.

So basically in 12-14 years, the serial #'s increased by around 400-450,000...or roughly 25-30,000/year (assuming their production thru 2 owners before UMI was consistent per year - not necessarily an iron-clad assumption, but it gets you close enuff...)

So using that formula puts yours mid-late 70's, maybe around '76-ish.
 
#6 ·
I think UMI was formed in March 1985. I don't think UMI made a "King Super 20" but they made "King Super 21". Did UMI, and the owners before, buy the trademarks/brands or just the plants and machines? The late 613/615 were called "KG-613K/615K" in King Musical Instruments, INC catalogs from the late 70's and early 80's. I like the 615 tenors as well.
 
#7 ·
I do not believe UMI made the Super 21. That was a Henkin-era horn. The 21's do not have an UMI serial sequence, but rather still a King Sequence, which Henkin was still using. Their serials are not even at the END of that King sequence, but around 100,XXX short of the end.

The Super 21 is a dead-ringer for the Conn 21M, just with flourishes as I noted above.

The 20 and 21M were discontinued under UMI, I am pretty sure. Never seen one which sported an UMI serial.

Indeed, the last Cleveland 613/615's no longer were called Clevelands at all, just the numerical model number...

I can understand, in concept I suppose, how clunky keywork replaced the better keywork of the Cleveland Kings when production moved to Eastlake.

I guess what I fail to understand is WHY, given that King COULD produce modern-style keys for their Super 20...between 1967-1984 NOBODY there thought it prudent to perhaps redesign the Cleve Eastlake keywork to something better. They had the tooling at the factory. Even Henkin did this on Conn Altos when he retired the 50M Shooting star and replaced it with the 18/20/21M's. But they never did that to the Cleves.

Same can be said for the Conn 16M ....even under UMI, they stuck with the conventional keywork from the 60's-mid 80's...and when they finally retired the 16M for the 22M - and also the King 662 - (thus introducing a modern-style keywork) they went to modern keywork but dumped the Conn-style (aka 10M) body.

I guess they just kept selling well enough not to do anything. But even Selmer-Bundy was smart enough to replace the Bundy with the Bundy II (updated keywork) from an ergo point of view, that is.
 
#8 ·
I just bought a King Cleveland 615 and I'm having the same problem as Peter B. dating it. It is marked "King Cleveland 615 U.S.A." with a crown over the lettering, and no indication that it was made in Eastlake. The serial number is 697335. It appears to have construction details from the early 1960's, and the lack of engraving for "Eastlake" seems to put it at pre-1965- however, the serial number throws that date off. What a conundrum...
 
#9 ·
I don't believe the 615 was ever made in Cleveland, only made in Eastlake and later. If a sax was made in Eastlake, it would have been stamped Eastlake. The hnwhite.com chart indicates their Cleveland serial numbers end around C 420,000 in 1970. Your serial number and the stamp U.S.A. indicates that it was made later than the OP's horn.
 
#10 ·
There may be some confusion as the Clevelands from the 60s or 70s had a "C" before the serial number and tended to follow this list:

Serial Numbers (Approx.) Year Manufactured
1 – 9,999
1925Purchased by H.N. White
Co.
10,000 – 29,000 1930
30,000 – 39,999 1935
40,000 – 44,999 1940
45,000 – 49,999 1945
50,000 – 64,999 1950
65,000 – 99,999 1955
100,000 – 159,999 1960
160,000 – 419,999 1965
420,000 – 599,999 1970
600,000 – 1975
 
#11 ·
Speaking of 615 Clevelands --

In a Southside Chicago pawnshop, 20 yrs ago, I swear I saw a right bell king tenor marked King Cleveland. It was a King from the funny keys, that caught my eye, and I figured it was a Zephyr, but I read the engraving.

There was at least one other (nickel keys, left bell, I think alto) King Cleveland on the wall next to this strange one.

Were there any of these right bell King Clevelands made on purpose?

(In other words, did they make right bell nickel key horns named King Cleveland? Was there an alternate or temporary line of these right bell Cleveland 615 horns? I have heard some people say that is what the last Zephyrs were, but just not named that.)

I was kinda hung over at the time. Was the fuzzy brain responsible for this memory? I have looked for another example ever since and never saw one, and I am about ready to kick this memory to the curb as a confabulation, jumbelation, alcohol-poisoning fake.

I have seen 615s with nickel keys where the shape of the key did not look like Kings, with the dome and towards-the-end attachment, too. The music store guys told me they were later ones that were not as well-respected.

As for my Zephyr/King Cleveland, I suppose anyone could stick an engraving on anything ...
 
#12 ·
From the H.N. White website:

Cleveland and American Standard Serial Numbers:

Date Serial Number
1919-1930 1-10,000
1930-1935 10,000-30,000
1935-1940 30,000-40,000
1940-1945 40,000-45,000
1945-1950 45,000-50,000
1950-1955 50,000-65,000
1955-1960 65,000-100,000
1960-1965 100,000-160,000
1965-1970 160,000-420,000

The Clevelands do appear to have a C in front of the Ser. No., and the later ones are etched "East Lake Ohio."
 
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