Luftwaffe Saxophone....

[Lowboy]

Ever see one? My friend has this.. he's way over on the price I believe... any guess on value?

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Is that yellow marker on it? Anyway, never seen one before. Just like the U.S. Military had bands, you could assume Germany did as well. It is interesting!

[Lowboy]

Is that yellow marker on it? Anyway, never seen one before. Just like the U.S. Military had bands, you could assume Germany did as well. It is interesting!

No.. its not yellow marker.. there was a leather strap covering that area for obvious reasons.. it wore differently than other areas.

[Walkwolf]

The yellow is brass where the silver plating has been rubbed/filed off.
Shame - looks like someone tried to remove the swaz.

No case ?

[Lowboy]

No... this is it... strap and sax.

[Walkwolf]

I expect it will be rather a lot - although an older, used but playable tenor sax should
not be terribly expensive, between $500-$1200, forgetting about the eagle.
( New tenor saxes go for over $2,500 and depending on the
grade/quality, over $10,000 )

Compared to other parts of the instrument, the eagle and swastika
have been tampered with - there is no significant wear to
any surrounding areas on the horn.........

[Lowboy]

I expect it will be rather a lot - although an older, used but playable tenor sax should
not be terribly expensive, between $500-$1200, forgetting about the eagle.
( New tenor saxes go for over $2,500 and depending on the
grade/quality, over $10,000 )

Compared to other parts of the instrument, the eagle and swastika
have been tampered with - there is no significant wear to
any surrounding areas on the horn.........

This SAX was used POST WAR.. There was a leather strap covering the eagle and the swastika, for obvious reasons.
This is the reason for wear in this area.

[Walkwolf]

That is not what I see.........

[Lowboy]

I'm sure that someone tried to remove it as well... but a leather band wrapped around it didnt help I'm sure.

[Lowboy]

interesting>>> The end of the Jazzophone

In the 1930s jazz in Germany began to see its downturn. Despite the liberal attitudes of the Weimar democracy, the public and private sentiment toward blacks, including African Americans, was an ambivalent. In 1932, all the conservative musicians and critics were denigrating jazz as a product of 'nigger' culture, which provided the government the fodder to forbid hiring of colored musicians. One critic even went so far as to call jazz a mere 'nigger noise', having only one purpose: "to introduce obscenities into society."

For the Nazis, jazz was a threatening form of expression and the saxophone was jazz. The Nazi regime pursued and banned the broadcasting of jazz on German radio, partly because of its African roots and because many of the active jazz musicians were of Jewish origin; and partly due to the music's certain themes of individuality and freedom. The jazz studies in Frankfurt were closed by the Nazis in 1933. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, had hoped to convince and persuade the public via anti-jazz propaganda before 1935, rather than prohibit jazz. However, jazz was officially banned in 1935. In 1935, the Nazi government did not allow German musicians of Jewish origin to perform any longer. Listening to foreign stations, which regularly played jazz, was penalized from 1939 on.

Poster for an Exhibition in Dusseldorf, 1938

The saxophone - so strongly associated with jazz - was seen in Germany as the anti-German instrument, proposes Günther Dullat in his book on nearly forgotten wind instruments. That didn't mean the end of the saxophone production in Germany. In 1938/1939 C.A. Wunderlich still sold saxophones, engraved with with a swastika and an eagle, used by the German Luftwaffe. And in 1939 Ernst Hess Nachf. from Klingenthal offers on the last page of his catalog offers a Saxie, a little saxophone-like instrument, because "how often do small village bands not like having a saxophone". In the same catalog Hess proudly announces their making the new Herms-Niels fanfares with which the glory of Hitler was praised at the Reichsparteitag in 1938.