Toobz

Although I have bought and sold a number of instruments over the decades, this one haunts me still. My story is about a sax. A Conn DJH 108m. (Keilwerth stencil). This horn was purchased off Ebay. It was listed as just a Conn alto. The lone fuzzy pic showed a 70's era case and some student instructional books. At a quick glance, it appeared to be one of the cheap low grade student horns that Conn sold during the 70's. But for some reason, the sax caught my eye. I looked the picture over and realized that this was no crappy modern Conn. So I emailed the seller and asked what numbers were on the back. 108m was the response. Jackpot !

I ended up being the high bidder at $270.00 + $35.00 for shipping.
So for just over $300.00 I had bought a damn good Pro sax. All that remained was what kind of shape, and what kind of a player was this sax going to be. Upon arrival, it looked decent, but nothing close to mint. However, it played wonderfully. I still have not played another alto as good as this one. It was one of those horns where everything fell into place. A real player.

I ended up selling this horn when I was a little short on cash for $1000.00 bucks on Ebay. After all . I consider myself mainly a Tenor player, and I didn't think I needed the Alto.The buyer emailed me when it arrived and was trying to squeeze some cash back out of me, because he thought it would be a little better looking. I asked, "Did you play it yet? " He said he'd give it a try and would get back to me. He did ! He said that this sax plays better than anyting he had ever played and was thrilled with his purchase. I knew right then, at that moment, what a bonehead I was for letting that sax get away.