Used Saxophones

[Alan Costin]

I’m going to try out a Selmer S80 Tenor that’s for sale for around £1600, it’s an early 90s model. Anyone have any tips on what to look out for when buying an older Sax. Also is this a good price for this particular Sax.

[john]

Don’t know the value, you’ll need to look at others and see. Selmer is still one , if not the best sax maker in the world. I would first just try playing it to see how it feels. Not much else really matters. If there’s a ding on the body it can be fixed, if there are leaky pads or bent or broken rods they can be fixed etc. Much lilke a car, if you can find enough problems with it from a repair man then maybe get the guy to lower the price. A good repair man can find things we might not.

[Alan Costin]

Hi Johnny, I’ve seen this same model priced between £1350 – £1800. There are a couple of dings but the seller says the sax has been services recently. Is there a good way of checking for leaky pads? I’ve heard people talk about using a light to find them but I wont be able to do that when I trying it out in the guys house.

[john]

the light trick is used by repair guys but it’s done with a long thin light, so if you have one or can get one, otherwise just play it an to see how hard the low notes are to get. If they’re really hard then there’s probably a leak or 2. But my whole point is so what? Are you going to pass up on a quality horn because it has a leak that a repair guy can fix in 5 minutes for a few bucks?!

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