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Did King (H.N. White) lacquer over their touch pieces?

945 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  saxcop 
#1 ·
I have a 300XXX King Super 20 (1948/49). The touch pieces/pearls have traces of gold lacquer on them. Even the ones that should have been heavily used. There are also lacquer traces on the palm and side key touches.

My question: Did King deliver new Saxes at that time with lacquer over the pearls, or is this from a re-lac?

I searched the forum and could not find an existing thread, my apologies if this has been covered before, and I would appreciate a link to the discussion case this has been covered before.

Thank you
 
#2 ·
They had to be lacquered with the pearls in because of the difficulty of installing the pearls after lacquering without marring the horn. In other words, you would not take a brand new finished and lacquered sax apart so you could swedge the pearls into the holders on the cups. At the very least you would have to completely set the horn back up and there would almost certainly be scratches all over the sax. There are ways to mask off the pearls when using gold lacquer. I don't know about King but Selmer lacquered the sax after complete assembly. There are many other clues to detecting a re-lacquer. Perhaps you should go at it from that direction which can decide the question. For example engraving was done after lacquering so if you have light engraving that has no oxidation in it its probably a re-lacquer. Don't forget, there is no re-lacquer without buffing, which is the thing that does the damage. So, you should be able to tell with a close look at the engraving to see if it is sharp and clear.
 
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