Burnished Gold Plate 1931 Conn 6M with Norton Springs!

1931 Conn transitional 6M alto saxophone in original burnished gold plate finish, just overhauled by me. The art deco engraving is beautiful, and the CG CONN lettering is a rare style. This is the earliest example of the left-hand bell keys 6M I have ever seen, and shares some unique “features” with the first few hundred like this: a two piece inside neck tenon, odd alternate Eb mechanism on a long rod shared with the alternate G#.

Also, this one, unique as far as I can tell, has a full set of Norton springs, which seem to have been factory-installed (or by a wizard later on, because doing that well to every single post would be a gargantuan effort requiring a lot of skill to do this well). There are several other Conn instruments clustered around the same time period that have partial Norton springing, but it was rare and quickly dissipated just before they became standard features on Buescher.

This instrument might be one-of-a-kind, and boy it sure plays great. I put my own pads in it with reusable brass resonators and it plays like a great 6M should. My own 6M is just a few thousand serials later, and the short run from 245k-260k or so are my personal favorites. They just ring with effortless power and depth. Very hard to put down.

Serial is 245311. If you have an earlier left-hand bell keys version, I would like to know. If you have another gold-plated alto in the same serial range, I would love to see it.

Interestingly, it seems like a lot of the altos made around 245k were gold plated, both matte and burnished.