My goal was and is not to regurgitate all the existing research, but to provide Cavalier, and potential Cavalier saxophone owners, with an overview, and some hints of where to check for further info, as well as pitfalls to watch for when reading stuff on the web.ĭoing research for this article proved to be challenging, since there was very little information about the Cavalier brand available, and what I did find online was in some cases simply wrong. Some concluding thoughts about Cavalier saxophones The left pinkie cluster is similar to what we see in Pan American saxophones of a similar vintage.Nor does it have a chromatic F# key guard.That said, the photos are of a good quality, so we can make out the following details:
PAN AMERICAN ALTO SAXOPHONE SAX 1930 PITCH SERIAL
Unfortunately the seller didn’t provide us with a pic of the serial # area of the horn, so we don’t know what the patent information on it might be.
OK, back to reality… Or at least back to this Cavalier alto… Here are a few things to note: In case you’re interested, it sold in March of this year for $162.50! WTF? Hey, I got a neck from a Bundy II alto you can buy that’s left over from my lamp project. That didn’t seem to stop people from bidding on this vintage student sax however, since it received a surprising 23 bids! Source: Global-Garage-Sale-Colchester-VT on However, at least the photos of these junky horns allowed me to determine what features the Cavaliers saxophones did have, and how they compared to their Pan American and Conn cousins. Not one was what I would call even nice…. Sadly what I found were mostly junky horns that had led anything but a charmed life. Source: SOTW thread, Cavalier Production Dates? 1931 Cavalier saxophones that dealers could orderīecause the descriptions were seriously lacking, I did some eBay research to see what I could find. Later all went to patent applied for, with the Conn line first and Pan American and Cavalier following some years later.ī ased on discussions I have read, I suspect in the pre-WWII models, overall quality was similar between the lines, the price differential coming from the handling of the tone holes and the differences in the keys. Cavalier started with the Hardy tone hole patent stamp. Also,the Conn’s stamped the Haynes tone hole patent on their instruments, while the Pan Americans after the mid 1920s went to stamping the Hardy tone hole patent. Additionally,the Pan American’s had missing keys or MOP buttons from their Conn equivalents and Cavalier’s had missing keys from their Pan American equivalents. A main difference is the Conn’s had rolled drawn tone holes, while the Pan American and Cavalier lines had straight drawn tone holes. However, since Conn was the premium line, Pan American the moderately priced line, and Cavalier the lowest priced line, there are differences. The three lines of Conn Ltd, Conn, pan American and Cavalier all shared design similarities in contemporary models. And haters not withstanding, those that own or have owned them, and techs who have worked on them, seem to be of the opinion that they are good vintage saxophones.Īccording to SOTW member badenia, who for years has been researching the Pan American and Cavalier brands: However, those two degrees made a hell of a lot of difference.Ĭompared to their big-name Conn cousins, Cavalier saxophones were seriously watered down versions of what a saxophone could be.
If you want to play degrees of separation, there would be two degrees of separation between Cavalier and Conn. These were labeled along the lines of “Produced by the Pan American company”. Pan American had its own “budget” brand, namely Cavalier.
PAN AMERICAN ALTO SAXOPHONE SAX 1930 PITCH PRO
So I did some research about the brand, and it suddenly became clear to me why this brand had slipped past my radar: My research tended to focus on the pro models made by saxophone manufacturers, whereas Cavaliers saxophones were not pro-level horns.Ĭavalier saxophones were made by Pan American. Given I have spent the more than 15 years now researching vintage saxophones, I found this odd. I must admit that I had never heard of Cavalier saxophones before I looked at this 1931 catalogue from the Chicago Musical Instruments company.
0 kommentar(er)
