saxhorn family. Later, rotary valves were adopted, and the modern instrument's oval upright form was developed by the Austro-Hungarian maker Václav Frantisek Cervený in the 1870s, based on his Kaiser family of instruments.

During the American Civil War in the 1860s, "over-the-shoulder" (OTS) saxhorns, including an E? tenor horn size, were built in large numbers in the United States.