I watch the altos frequently just to see what they look like. Some have been quite tempting but it seems I am either not prepared or someone else wants it worse. No luck so far on an alto.
I have been seeing an alto bell listed for what I would pay for a whole rebuildable alto in wood. That said, today a new alto bell listing from the UK came up. You won't see it unless you include international sellers in your search. Sometimes shipping from the UK is prohibitive, this listing didn't give me a quote to Atlanta. I have gotten some UK items with very reasonable shipping costs, so it is worth checking into if you want to go the route of finding the pieces.
You also need to verify that the bell fits. Ask about specific measurements of the socket diameter for sure, as well as the depth of the socket. If you are going to put it together, you don't want to end up with a Franken-alto in appearance. As long as it all fits it will probably all work better otherwise as well. Personally I think putting an engraved Pedler bell on a Bundy body is lipstick on a pig, but if the lipstick is reasonably priced and the right color, why not? If you did incremental upgrades, you could wait it out for a better body to go with the Pedler bell.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alto-Clarinet-Bell-/131924035873?hash=item1eb7490921:g:HWYAAOSw-KFXfrtmThe other route?
Assume you score the bell and now all you need is the neck. At the end of the scavenger hunt, you still have a Bundy with borrowed components. The whole is the sum of the parts, and that will be reflected in the future when you might seek a return on your investment.
Right now you have one stray part. You could sell that and wait for a very good alto to come along complete, perhaps just needing new pads or other maintenance. Doing a complete re-pad or any kind of "all keys off" maintenance on one of these is significant in expense when done by a good tech, but a restoration of a good vintage instrument is still my idea of how to get the most bang for the buck.
The condition of the Bundy body with keys is something that needs careful evaluation. If all the springs, pads, and regulation corks are present and functioning, if you can hold all the keys down plug one end and do compression and suction seal tests on it and make sure that it is 100% working, that's different from "maybe it works or not."
