This horn was made in Elkhart just a few serial numbers after they continued the rolled toneholes. It is still from the well-known X-brace series and has been bullet-proof. It has been my main Rock 'n' Roll horn since I got.
There is a story about this one and the lacquer being in such good condition...about 5 years ago, I found this horn on craigslist...the guy I bought it from bought it new in 1950, played it for two years in high school, and then put it in his mother's attic for nearly 50 years. His mom died, and in cleaning out the house, he came across the horn. THe mice had eaten all the pads corks and felts, but it was in Sacramento (very dry climate) so the lacquer was perfectly preserved...like new (in the interest of full disclosure, there are a couple of places where he obviously left a thumbprint on the horn before storing it...at the thumbhook and the straphook...the lacquer at both of these is gone...see pics. It had the little dents in it that you might expect from a high school kid. I overhauled it with black roopads from MusicMedic and metal resos (I left the dings because I didn't want to disturb the lacquer, but it's probably $50 worth of simple dent work if the new owner wants to clean them up), and have been using it for rock and roll gigs off and on. I did take out a small dent under the octave key on the neck as you can see. As things go, I have continued collecting horns, currently have 3 sopranos, 2 altos, 4 tenors and 4 baris...my wife is pressuring me to move some of them out of the house (my workshop is too small, what with customer horns as well). The case is also original and lightly scuffed; there are a couple of fiberglass patches on the corners...well-done long ago from the appearance. Original key!
One last point...I had a machinist make a small neck extension that allows me to use modern mouthpieces. The original neck was not modified at all, this is just soldered to the end...very slick. If the new owner wanted, I could easily restore the neck to original at no charge, or you could try it with the extension and any local tech could remove it for a few bucks plus the cost of putting on a new neck cork.
I'm asking $2000 for this beautiful horn...see pictures below as they load, I have tried to use lighting to highlight the shallow dents on the bow and the back of the horn for disclosure. There are two little pings on the neck as well...contact me at sjrosner@mindspring.com