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Well here’s something you don’t see everyday. I have to admit, even though I am well aware of the mechanical challenges that often come with a Rampone saxophone, when they are put right they have a lovely tone and good gracious they are so beautiful. This particular instrument is solid silver, which I have not seen before. It was passing through the shop for a little tune-up, with someone previously having done a good deal of work to get it into good shape. It played very nicely, with a lovely warm vintage type tone.

Engraving detail on the second Balanced Action alto ever made, and the first one sent to America, meaning it is the first “American Engraved” BA alto. Nice steamship, cool spider! I have not seen those before I don’t think. There are also a few other oddities about this horn that I will cover in detail once the overhaul is done.

A 1937 Conn 30M that arrived here in two two different boxes will leave in one! This tenor arrived to me as something I had purchased very cheaply on a bit of a lark. It had been disassembled since the ’80s, was probably refinished, and it was not completely certain that all the parts were there. I was hopeful that there would be enough there for me to make a saxophone, and upon opening the boxes and laying everything out, it was clear I had gotten lucky. All the major parts were there. There were many smaller things that were missing, and I did have to break the seal on several sacred secret and holy places in my parts collection- several Perm-Adjust adjustment feet, the special fat 26M/30M rollers that are NOT the same as 6M/10M (and even those are super hard to come by), the weird octave neck screws, tons of tiny 1-64 lock screws, a thumb pearl, pivot screws, a neck screw, a replacement neck tenon and receiver (compliments of Musical Fabrication/Matt Slauson). And then dent work, and so much cleaning. I think I probably got a cubic inch of red rouge alone off of this thing, to say nothing of the regular grime. And these are challenging horns to work on when they are in excellent condition! This horn ended up being two full weeks of work, and then a bit more I lost track of. All in all, I broke even. Which is somewhat of a miracle! And I got what I wanted- a horn that probably needed to get very lucky to get put back in circulation for the long-term, me being almost ready for the job at this point in my career, the luck to actually acquire it cheap enough that I could put the work it needed into it, and the right long-term customer to buy it who was willing and excited to let me do my thing. I love that I get to work on such special instruments- whether they are extremely rare or mint condition or collectible or have some sort of special heritage, or a workhorse like this one that found its way back to the sunlight. Time to make music again.

1931 Conn transitional 6M alto saxophone in original burnished gold plate finish, just overhauled by me. The art deco engraving is beautiful, and the CG CONN lettering is a rare style. This is the earliest example of the left-hand bell keys 6M I have ever seen, and shares some unique “features” with the first few hundred like this: a two piece inside neck tenon, odd alternate Eb mechanism on a long rod shared with the alternate G#.

No more worrying about bunched up skin on pad backs! Use the “darts” feature on the Stohrer Sax Shop Companion. Darts are customizable in shape, frequency, and at what sizes they are used. I thought I would be using them mainly for smaller pads, but I’m not really seeing any downside to using them in larger pads. Edit: I DO NOT WANT A PATENT stop talking about it darts are like a thousand year old idea the only thing that is new is that using a laser cutter means you can easily do it for pads

Pssst, hey, you want a free 12 wheel chromatic strobe tuner?? Working on this for next major release of the Sax Shop Companion app. Got it working at 60fps+ and looking really good!

Conn F Mezzo-soprano saxophone, 1928. Original silver plate, just overhauled by me. This horn smokes. If you want to see it or play it, check out the GetASax booth at NASA later this week.

Pad set! I’m really enjoying learning about pads.

Worn neck strap ring repairs are fun when they go well! This was an otherwise excellent original condition Super 20 Silversonic, so a premium was placed on blending it in.

This Buffet Super DynAction baritone wears a rather owlish look, due to a unique upper turn layout.

This is a reference library for pad set sizes for padmaking. This library is a work in progress. Pad sizes can vary between individual instruments of the same model, especially across serial number ranges, and of course variations from one to the next as a result of damage or even just variation at the factory is common. Note: not all sets here include octave pad sizes. Use these as a starting point and always verify against the actual instrument. Hopefully if you are making your pads yourself, the pads themselves will be the correct sizes, but note that if you are buying pads elsewhere even if your pad set measurements are correct you will likely find variance in the pad sizes you receive.

Took what I am nearly certain are original pads out of a Conn F-mezzo today for overhaul and the serial under the G# does not match the serial on the body! Felts and corks and everything were correct and matched the original setups I have seen on these in the past. I have done a weirdly high amount of F-mezzo overhauls, but I have never seen this before. Neither serial was on Peter Hurd’s “rare saxophone registry” but is now.

Just finished and up next! 88k alto and 78k Mark VI tenor.

Doing a PC repair to this SML tenor and the maker’s mark is blank! This must have been on its way to be a stencil and never found a stenciler. Straight tone holes, 21k serial puts it at 1970.

Not one but TWO rare Conn 18M “stretch” sopranos, both in rare finishes! One in gold plate, one in nickel. I will let you decide which one is cooler. The Conn 18M was one of the outputs of the Conn Experimental Laboratory around the same time as the Conn-O-Sax and the F Mezzo-Soprano. The stretch was supposed to be part of Conn’s 1920s major upgrades across the saxophone spectrum, but ended up being part of their failed/abandoned cadre of great but weird horns that include the F-mezzo and Conn-O-Sax. They were made starting in 1928 and quietly and quickly faded out- probably within two years, although as is the case with other horns that fail to sell they trickled out over time long after they ceased production. The “stretch” was as it sounds: longer and skinnier than a normal soprano, with a redesigned bore and scale and keywork aimed at improving both tone and intonation and facility- something they very much achieved, IF you have the right mouthpiece.

Lookup Submit Specs This is a reference library of original factory screw and rod thread specifications for vintage saxophones. Having the correct thread pitch is essential when making replacement screws or sourcing parts for repairs and restorations. This library is a work in progress. I am collecting and verifying data as I research original specifications.

This is a saxophone serial number lookup tool. Select your manufacturer and enter the serial and get the year it was made. Note: Not all serial number lists are accurate, but we do the best we can. If you see an error, let me know. Manufacturer Select a manufacturer... Serial Number Look Up Year Data from Stohrer Sax Shop Companion Sources # Serial number data has been compiled and cross-referenced from multiple sources including:

NOTE: THIS IS VERY ROUGH AND I WILL CLEAN THIS UP SOON -matt january 2026 This is a reference library of saxophone key heights. Some are from original factory setups, some are heights I have come to prefer that have other provenance. This is not instructions to use these heights for a guaranteed good time- you have to use your ear for that! But hopefully you will find them useful.

I have (with the major help of Claude Code) completely rewritten this site for the static site generator Hugo, and moved hosting. These two changes are major, but completely under the hood. What you should notice is that the site is now much, much faster and hopefully shows up better in searches for sax info. I have added a “new gallery” as well, with images from the past several years.

New gallery started in January 2026 alongside a major website rebuild. Click any image to enlarge.