Saxophone Forum


by morningdaniel
(1 post)
12 years ago

Troubadour Alto Saxophone

 

Hello Everyone,

 

I have just inherited a Troubadour Alto Saxophone from my grandfather. I was hoping there was someone on here able to help me find a date of origin as well as the company that made this item and what the sax is worth. It has a pretty neat looking key guard (art deco style?) on the lower half of the instrument. It has a stamp on the back saying "made in Germany" that is below a JK Trademark with the words "BEST IN THE WORLD" encircling it. I am a percussionist so I apologize if any of the terminology I used is incorrect.
Thank you guys so much for your help!

 

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  1. by GFC
    (842 posts)

    12 years ago

    Re: Troubadour Alto Saxophone

    The keyguard is of a type found on Toneking Series IV, and some Series III, horns.  They were made with lucite keyguards and metal keyguards of a similar design.  They were produced in the mid 1950s.  Keilwerth is the best known producer of New King and Tone King models, and those horns were widely distributed as stencil horns.  But there is apparently some evidence that some of those horns were produced by Kohlert.  There were apparently different quality levels of Series IV horns produced, depending on the criteria of who was distributing a particular stencil model.  Hopefully the link below will be helpful in figuring out if your horn is a Series IV or Series III, and whether it was made by Keilwerth or Kohlert.   The linked article mentions some of the brands the Series IVs were distributed under, but not Troubador.

    http://www.saxpics.com/keilwerth/newking.htm

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