Conn-O-Sax, F
Maker
C. G. Conn, Ltd.
Date1929 ca.
Place MadeElkhart, Indiana, United States, North America
Model22M
Serial No.M224654
SignedEngraved on body, surrounded by Art Deco designs including the head of a woman with long, wavy hair, within a pentagon, surrounded by architecturally inpspired geometric and leaf patterns: [on a slant] MADE BY / C. G. Conn Ltd. / [on a slant] ELKHART-IND. / U.S.A.MarkingsPATD. DEC. 8, 1914 / 1119954 / F / M224654 / L
DescriptionStraight alto saxophone with a globular bulbous bell. Brass, retains original lacquer. Inlaid mother-of-pearl on keys and rollers. Standard Art Deco engraving of the head of a woman with long, wavy hair, in a pentagon (“naked lady”), surrounded by architecturally inspired geometric and leaf patterns. Has a low A key activated by right-hand thumb.
Although the Conn-O-Sax was produced and sold by C. G. Conn Ltd. for only a few years (1928-1930), the conception of this hybrid cross between the saxophone, the English horn, and the heckelphone took place more than fifteen years earlier through Col. Conn's patent #1,166,971, filed by him on October 22, 1913, but not granted until January 4, 1916, several months after the entrepreneur had sold the company and his rights to this patent to Carl D. Greenleaf. Although Conn Ltd. was lavish in its late 1920s promotion of the innovative Conn-O-Sax, it was almost certainly the combined effects of bad timing, the depressed economy, the decline of interest in vaudeville, and the lack of idiomatic music for the instrument that barred its general acceptance among musicians. Today, only a few examples remain as curious testimonies to the rise and fall of “the roaring twenties.”
DimensionsOverall body length, not including mouthpiece & mouthpiece-crook: 875 mm
Advertised by Conn in 1928 as being 88" long, weighing 5 lbs
ProvenanceArne B. Larson Estate, 1988.
Published ReferencesBanks, Margaret Downie. _Elkhart's Brass Roots: An Exhibition to Commemorate the 150th Aniversary of C. G. Conn's Birth and the 120th Anniversary of the Conn Company_. Vermillion, South Dakota: The Shrine to Music Museum, 1994. (p. 81)
Banks, Margaret Downie. “Conn-O-Sax Conn-cedes Defeat.” _The Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter_ 23, No. 1 (October 1995): 4-5.
Credit LineArne B. Larson Estate, 1988
Object number04598
On View
Not on view
