Selmer Balanced Action
Alto Saxophone

Serial Number 25665 -- 1938

SOLD - Aug. 9, 2009

This was Larry Borenstein's horn...used by him for 60 years.
You can click on Larry's name above to get some information about him or you can go to this recent news article.
Larry was a Madison, WI native, graduate of Madison West High School and of University of Wisconsin - School of Music.
Larry was a stand-out player beginning in his high school years.
His Balanced Action alto was manufactured in Paris, France in 1938. Larry bought it new while he was a student at the UW School of Music (1937-41) and used it from there on...playing with the Eddy Howard orchestra, recording on Mercury and Columbia records...up until he passed away in 1998.
It was then stored by his son, unplayed, until now...here it is for sale.

This is an original lacquer horn with a lovely engraving of a sailboat on a tree-lined mountain lake.
All the original mother-of-pearl fingertouchs are present, as are the rollers.
It even comes with the dark wood (ebony?) neck plug.

One foot of the side F# keyguard and on foot of the low D# keyguard had come loose and been resoldered at some point.
There is lacquer wear by the righthand thumbhook, neck strap ring and other places as is normal for horn that was owned and played by a working professional musician for 60 years.
There is a dent on the body-side of the bell, which defies understanding as how it got there.
And there is a very shallow dent on the bottom spine of the bow guard ridge.

When the horn came to me, I replaced three bad springs and regulated the horn to get it into playing condition so that it could be test-played.
The pads are older.

The original case is long gone having succumbed to the rigors of a professional musician's lifestyle.
It now comes in a ProTec case.