Where Our Serial Numbers Come From

Serial number charts differ between sources. This page lists the references behind each chart in our lookup tool, brand by brand.

Selmer Paris

Selmer dates follow Douglas Pipher's Improved Selmer Saxophone Serial Number Chart, compiled from shipping records in the Selmer Paris archives and a photo archive of more than 125,000 instruments. Where it differs from the older factory chart, usually by about a year at some boundaries, we use Pipher. Mark VI alto bow length ranges follow the photo guide on our blog.

C.G. Conn

Conn dates come from the standard factory lists. Era boundaries, including the New Wonder, the Chu Berry, the Transitional horns of 1931 to 1934, and the M series Naked Lady, follow the chart maintained at saxophone.org. Conn's own records describe the years as approximate, and serial numbers jump from about 360,000 to 500,001 in 1955.

King / H.N. White

The H.N. White Company's serial records were destroyed when the company was sold to Seeburg in 1965. Every published King date is a reconstruction by collectors. We follow the lists at hnwhite.com and granlundwoodwind.com, which support dating to about a two year window. That is why our King results read 1939 to 1940 rather than a single year.

Buescher

Buescher dates follow the list built on Albert Mensinga's data, extended by saxophone.org using original sales receipts found in instrument cases. Production from roughly 1942 to 1947 cannot be dated precisely.

Yanagisawa

During the 1970s, Yanagisawa embedded the year in its seven and eight digit serial numbers. Two digits near the front are the year, so 1272903 is a 1972 instrument. Yanagisawa has never published an official chart for later production. The charts in circulation are community reconstructions, and Yanagisawa will confirm an individual serial by email.

Keilwerth

Keilwerth left Graslitz at the end of World War II and resumed production in Nauheim, Germany around 1946, restarting serial numbers at 20,000. The chart shows the two factories separately.

Martin

Martin dates follow the factory list as published at saxophone.org. The lists at granlundwoodwind.com and jazzbarisax.com and the Martin serial graph at brasshistory.net match it row for row from 1919 to 1963. One sequence covers every model. Wurlitzer bought Martin in 1964 and restarted serial numbers in the 700,000s; no published chart dates that run, so the tool reports the era.

Buffet Crampon saxophones

Buffet saxophone dates follow saxophone.org, which drrick.com and adams-music.shop confirm. Buffet restarted serial numbers at 1 in 1950, so the tool asks which model family is on the bell before reading the number. The post-war list ends at 35,733 in 1985; later Prestige and 400 series horns are not dated by serial.

SML

SML dates follow saxophone.org, with the model boundaries (Rev. A through D, Gold Medal Mk. I and II) checked against bassic-sax.info. The two sources differ by one year on the start of the Gold Medal, 1956 or 1957.

Holton

Holton dates follow saxophone.org, the only published list we found. Serial numbers jumped from about 40,000 to 111,100 in 1932.

Buffet Crampon clarinets

The clarinet charts on our Buffet clarinet lookup follow adams-music.shop, which agrees with shopforband.com and granlundwoodwind.com apart from two printing errors we corrected. Buffet's own records for 1946 to 1957 and 1964 to 1966 were lost, so those bands are estimates, and the sources disagree on where 1961 ends. The E13 and Harmony clarinet charts and the lettered serials of 1885 to 1927 come from adams-music.shop alone. Published charts stop at 439,774 in 1997. The German-made student models (E11, E12, B10, B12) carry Schreiber numbers with no published chart.

Adolphe Sax

Dates for instruments from Adolphe Sax's Paris workshops (1844 to 1893) and for the Selmer built Adolphe Sax instruments (1931 to 1944) trace to the surviving Selmer Paris log book and the workshop's own numbering, era by era and address by address.

If your instrument came with dated paperwork that disagrees with these charts, we want to see it. Documented corrections improve the charts. paul@dcsax.com

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