More -
http://bassic-sax.info/blog/?p=400
Taken from SOTW - The first horns that could be called "Bundy" were made in the 1920s (all dates approximate, as I don't have my data at hand). Specifically, their bells were stamped "Geo. M. Bundy." Conn stencils After this there was a switch to the Aristocrat stencils. After that, you had the Bundy/Bundy Special made by Keilwerth. After
that you had horns "based" on the Aristocrat designs.
Kim Pelletier over at SOTW once sent me side-by-side pics of the Aristocrat 200 and an early 1970s Bundy. They're almost exactly the same horn. I've also heard more than one person say something like, "You've lost your neck from an Aristocrat? Use a Bundy II one." Heck, I've owned a mid-ish 1960s Aristocrat and it felt and played an awful lot like the Bundy II. Hey, the late B400 baritones also felt and played like the newer Selmer USA horns.
(I've also written that Buescher horns from around the time of the Selmer USA buyout -- 1963 -- seem to be a little odd and there was a bunch of different models. I've even posited that they had three or four versions of the 400 around that time.)
So, saying that a Bundy II is a
totally different instrument from a "Big B" Buescher Aristocrat is a bit of a stretch. A very watered-down version made with poorer materials and quality would be more accurate.
Finally, all this means that "Bundy" doesn't automatically = "junk" -- especially the Keilwerth ones -- but if you're talking about post 1963 Bundys, you're really getting into "student horn" range.