| Here's
some information from an eBay ad concerning one of these
horns (corrections are in brackets):
"The
serial number, and the 'naked lady' hand engraving at
first made me think that this instrument was built in
the early 1920's, but the 'DJH' engraving on the bell
was something that Daniel Henkin was fond of doing during
his ownership of Conn (1980-1985). It was during this
period that Conn was reestablished back in Elkhart, Indiana,
Doc Severenson was hired as Vice President of product
developement and the quality of Conn's earlier years was
once again seen in the craftsmanship of its instruments.
"Conn's
public relations department could only [tell me that]
the 108M model number is unknown and has no record. This
would imply that there were very few of these instruments
made and none mass produced.
"Mr
Henkin was said to be fond of producing small numbers
of limited pro line instruments. The serial number and
'DJH Modified' engraving are consistant with the 1980-1985
period in which Mr Henkin was sole owner of Conn Ltd.
-- and Mr Henkin was fond of putting his name on his custom
instruments.
"It is interesting to note that this would have been
one of the last Conn Ltd. instruments produced. In 1985
Conn was sold to a Swedish conglomerate and shortly thereafter
was incorporated into United Musical In[struments] (UMI).
"ITEM
CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Standard pitch (A=440)
2. Altissimo F# key
3. Drawn and rolled tone holes.
4. Real mother-of-pearl finger buttons on all stack keys,
side F#, high F#, and G# spatula.
5. Hand engraved bell. Includes engraving of 'C.G.CONN
LTD' and 'Naked Lady'
6. Adjustable thumb rest.
7. Body has extremely heavy wall constuction. The bell
and bow are quite thick and give the instrument a massive
feel.
"This
instrument has all the feel, and response of a very high
quality, pro line sax. If you are looking for a true vintage
and RARE 'Naked Lady', this is it."
=================
These
horns are nothing more than H-Couf
Superba models with different engraving and some
different sheet metal -- and the H-Coufs are, in turn,
Keilwerth
Toneking/New King (series IV) stencils.
There
are some folks that do insist that Daniel Henkin did order
custom bows and/or keywork, but there's not a large enough
sampling to prove or disprove this.
The
rolled tone hole models correspond, roughly, to the Superba
I, and non-rolled-tone-hole models to the Superba II.
I
do not have any pics of DJH baritones, nor do I know their
model number. I've heard that the straight soprano is
a 106M.
|
