Saxophones My new sax 'Arta Guban Tenor'

[oldblower]

Picked up my new sax yesterday cost me £67.00 came in a sturdy wooden case with a vandoren T25 mouthpiece and ligature, pad saver and plenty of dust!!!
Out of the box added a newish reed ,rico 2, and it plays, got a full range of notes and all in all not bad sound, my opinion! did see a small cat running away tho.
Minor thing but you need big hands for this one compared with the fairfield espirit i had on loan for a couple of weeks, but as an ex swimmers with a XXX glove size its not a problem for me.

Now my questions
1. Is this an ok mouthpiece?
2. Its not been played for some time, should i clean or just play? am not scared of dust.
I am a beginner only been playing for a month, alto 2 weeks tenor 2 weeks but loving it.

Its a big solid lump is there any info or insight anyone can give me about these.

Thanks in advance.

 

[BigMartin]

£67 for a working tenor sax has to be a good buy!

You might want to dust it a bit (and oil it, perhaps. Stephen Howard has some good tips on this in the Haynes sax manual) in case the dirt might cause wear on the action.

 

[jonf]

£67 for any tenor which works is fantastic. Mouthpiece should be fine, if a bit conservative for my tastes. It's a good quality one. Arta Guban were Eastern European workhorse saxes, not of the finest quality, but if it plays you've got a bargain. As you've found out, this type of sax tends to be built to take a bit of abuse.

Personally I'd dust it, using a duster and a vacuum cleaner at the same time to suck up the disturned dust, then as mentioned above, treat it to a drop of oil. Then, just blow the thing.

 

[Clivey]

My 1st ever sax was an Arta Guban Tenor I got in about 1979/80

I loved it. It cost me about £180 second hand then .
. A Selmer Paris tenor sax would have cost just over a Grand then.

 

[kevgermany]

Many of the Arta Guban saxes are very ornate. It's a Romanian maker. However it's a bit unclear whether they made all the saxes themselves, or imported them from East Germany/Czechoslovakia. Could be a mix of both.

Enjoy, sounds like you got a bargain there. A spot of oil on the works would be good. Use a pull through to keep the inside clean, will probably be a bit gungy at first.

 

[cazamir]

Many of the Arta Guban saxes are very ornate. It's a Romanian maker. However it's a bit unclear whether they made all the saxes themselves, or imported them from East Germany/Czechoslovakia. Could be a mix of both.

Enjoy, sounds like you got a bargain there. A spot of oil on the works would be good. Use a pull through to keep the inside clean, will probably be a bit gungy at first.

hi, all Arta Guban are genuinely made in Romania and are mark. No Faxes and no importers. The fabric / manufacturer Guban was a well known and very reputable. I have one Saxophone of this make and some are silver as well.