Yes, it survived the trip amazingly well. On Friday the Couf goes to my tech for the first time, to get some minor leaks and stuff taken care of. I certainly won’t be doing the horn justice yet tonight, since I won’t have the best MP and reeds for the horn ID’d by then… Oh, and I keep accidentally opening the chromatic F# key against my pants because it has no key guard. Tonight it gets to come with me to its first rehearsal of the big band I play in. Yesterday all I paid was the 12% tax upon entering Canada, as the Herb Couf Superba II bari became a Canadian. This greatly reduced the shipping costs, and also allowed me to be the one to bring the instrument into Canada, thus eliminating the customs brokerage fees. Since I only 15 blocks from the US/Canada border, I opted to have the Couf bari sent to my friends who live about an hour south of me in Washington State. Besides the exchange rate, there were the logistics with shipping to consider. To complicate matters of course, I live in Canada, and the horn was in the US. That said, I was convinced enough of the horn’s potential to take the great chance to do something that I have only done a few times before: Order a horn without being able to play-test it before buying it. (Of course, after my experience with the Medusa, nothing has made it clearer to me that my sound may, and likely would, vary greatly.) Paul was kind enough to send me a sound sample using a Berg Larsen MP. Then of course came the million questions you ask when you are considering buying a horn. When Paul informed me that the horn in fact was still in his shop, I was really surprised, and quite elated. Note the dog photo in the background: He was the sire to 2 of the borzoi that I had. I was sure it would have been sold, since it was such a unique horn.
I emailed him to find out if the sax shown on his website was still available. And there the horn was: listed in the inventory of PM Woodwind.Īlthough I had never bought a sax from Paul Maslin before, he and I had corresponded before on numerous occasions. I then cast my gaze a bit further afield, and checked out the offerings of vintage sax dealers who I have either bought from in the past when I lived in the Maritimes, or who I have corresponded with over the years. Most vintage baris available are keyed to only low Bb-and I already have two fantastic low Bb horns I use all the time-but for pit work I needed a bari that goes to low A. Quite frankly, none of what they had was interesting. Interestingly enough, the serial # (61XXX) places its manufacturing date in 1968.Īlthough I wasn’t desperate to find a low A bari, I did take a look at what my favourite local vintage sax dealers had for sale.
Couf Superba II bari in black nickel plate, with gold-plated keys and bell.
I found a replacement for the Medusa low A bari sax I sold in September, and it arrived safe & sound on Friday.
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