I was just finishing my annual project to provide pictures for the annual Sax Calendar that Pete Hales puts together. Running a bit late, okay really late, I called upon my friend QuinnTheEskimo (eBay Musical Instrument Retailer). He recommended I take pictures of his alto Rothphone by Botalli. It probably is from the 1880s. But the pictures of such a skinny instrument don’t seem to be good enough for a calendar.
So he told me he had a Bass Ophicleide in C by Thomas Key from around the 1860s. That would give some nice perspective and is very pertinent to a sax calendar. Pete sez, “Pairing the Roth with the Oph, now that’s a kewl idea. Additionally, Matt, the owner of the horns, said that the Oph is a C bass, which is essentially the horn that Adolphe Sax put a single-reed mouthpiece on and said, “Hmm. This sounds pretty decent. I wonder if I can improve it.”
Unfortunately I lost all the pictures on one camera but fortunately I usually take pictures on at least two cameras if I am in a prepared situation. So here are some of the rest of the pictures.
These were more like concept pictures and the lighting isn’t the best, but Pete will probably do some magic post-processing to improve upon the pictures. Helen does that to most of her pictures on her Bassic Sax blog, maybe I should see what magic she can do with these shots. :o)
You can see some more of my camera work on my Flickr photo site.
The Bis Key Chronicles 
Oh Jim, I only do that to my own photos. And only because I usually don’t get the lighting right the first time. ;-)These are very nice instruments, and I’m sure Pete will do a bit of magic on the lighting to get them to "pop". I had actually promised that I’d send him pics of some of my horns this year. Same promise I made last year. I think he knows I can’t be trusted with pesky little things like time lines or deadlines. Well you know what they…. There’s always next year. :-)
For quite a few pictures of ophicleides, see http://kimballtrombone.com/2010/07/15/ophicleide-history-and-images/