With some extra time on my hands lately, I’ve had time to trove through Google’s repository of scanned and cataloged patents. A few hours yielded over 70 patents that I saved because they are interesting, bizarre, or patents of mechanisms that would become universal. I wanted to share *some* of the things I found, please see the gallery below and checkout the captions for details. All of these patents are from before 1943 and are publicly available if you want to find out more about them. Enjoy! -Andrew Hadro | Curator, JazzBariSax.com
These are the original US patents for some very well known Selmer mechanisms!
My personal favorites, a “Tone Adjuster” and a stand/contraption made to allow one person to play 3 saxophones at once.
A reed guage, and a neat little add on that uses the lyre screw slot for a hanger/rest for the sax.
Strange built in reed cap? And a mouthpiece with a Doubled Ended reed?
More bizarre mouthpieces with too many features
A Vibrator Reed, and an Oboe Mouthpiece!
Lots of strange methods to tune a saxophone, and weird octave pip
Strange Mouthpieces with Ligatures or reed adjusters attached. Check out the “Method of Making Metal Reeds ” Ouch!
Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea to cut channels in the reeds for better vibrations…?
