... and I puffed

This post is about the low-cost Chinese saxophones I've been playing over the last year or so.

My first sax was an A.Carmichael alto from Karacha.com who are based in Northern Ireland, I think. It's a Conn-Selmer Prelude copy (maybe even a stencil if the invoice is to be believed).

This is the one.

I found it a solid. consistent horn, though perhaps a little lifeless. Also it had something of the feel of a manual typewriter about it - my fingers just felt they were doing too much work. Looking back, I'm sure a saxophone technician could have sorted that, but there you go.

Then around October last year I saw a Jericho alto sax for sale on ebay. I'd read good things about these horns, so I had a punt and bought it at a bargain price. (top tip for ebay sellers - don't end your sale on a Tuesday). Compared to the Carmichael this horn is light, bright and fast. So I sold the Carmichael which more than covered the cost of the Jericho.

So of course then I started hankering after a tenor. So about 6 weeks ago I bought one of Gear4music's damaged stock that they sell off through ebay.

This one had sustained a blow to the back that had squished the Eb key guard flat and pushed the thumb key into the body causing a leak to the alternate F# key. (I put this damage down to the inadequate case, but more of that in another post). I straightened the key guard and sealed the F# with sticky tape and it plays nicely.

These are the two horns.

Next step is to have a tech look at the tenor to see what the damage is financially. I can live with the dented  body, so if push comes to shove, a properly sealing F# would be good enough.