Anybody find pictures of what the earliest saxes looked like? I think they evolved in complexity as more paddles were added, and they are still evolving- an extra note here and there every so often. I consider them elaborate metal recorders.I went to Oxford and spent a couple of hours in the Bate musical museum- very interesting, they had a plastic "Charlie Parker" sax, but not much in the way of very early ones. There's a musical instrument shop in Shrewsbury called "Windband", and when I bought my first C-melody tenor ( a Wurlizer) I went into the workshop, and saw some really old instruments which seemed like hybrids between horns, and saxes, with very thin pipes, to attach probably something akin to a bassoon reed- fascinating how wind instruments have developed.