Back in 2008 when 2 men from Germany, Dave Denton and Uwe Ladwig, first informed me that my mysterious Hüttl alto was actually a Hammerschmidt stencil horn, they also provided some history about the company. One of the things that they mentioned was that Hammerschmidt made saxophones for Great Britain and Japan under the names Lafleur and Lafleur De Luxe.

Until recently I had never seen a Hammerschmidt-stencilled Lafleur. That changed when Dave Laker from the U.K. contacted me about his recent eBay purchase.

Dave bought an alto off the on-line auction site, that has the following engraved on its bell:

LAFLEUR

FOREIGN

DE LUXE

J.R. LAFLEUR & SON LTD.

LONDON PARIS AND NEW YORK

  Source: Dave Laker

A couple of things that are notable about this saxophone are that while it is a De Luxe model, it is lacking the full pearl treatment, and extra key work (2) that the De Luxe Hüttls had. The Lafleur De Luxe does however have a G# trill key.