Do we have the courage to participate in this thread?

[Matt G]

Would it sell for less than a week with no play test at that price?

Full disclosure: I just bought a 6/4 horn for $7k without playing it. I kinda know what I’m getting into with the examples that exist and I have the patience and funds to address issues as they arise.

Maybe that’s the case with this horn? It’s all a fun thought experiment nonetheless.

[humBell]

No. I don't have the courage to participate in this thread. Nor much of the relevant background.

Unless reading it counts as participation.

Sorry for my personal short comings.

[rodmathews]

I'll play, with a real life example. I have a Yamaha 822 F tuba in excellent condition and some modifications that I would like to sell.

Acknowledging that there aren't that many units of these instruments available in the market at any one time AND there aren't that many buyers in the market at any one time, I think I could easily sell it for about 70% of whatever a new instrument is selling for. I've sold three of these in the past, and that's about the ratio of where they sold, so I do have some direct market data over a 15 or 20 year period. In a normal non-COVID influenced market it should take very little time to move at that price, and I'd quickly have the cash in my pocket. If they are $10K new (plus tax) and I sold it for $7K (no tax) I am confident it would move quickly. If I went down to $6500 I'm 100% confident I'd have a few buyers lined up within a few days, and the multiple bidder situation might actually drive the price up a bit.

HOWEVER, I don't need the cash and I'm not in a hurry. I've also invested money in some modifications that others might like, and those should have some value. With patience for the right buyer, and knowledge that when a buyer decides to look for a used version of this horn there won't be many used or new ones available, I feel I can wait for a more appropriate price relative to my expectations.

I listed the horn for $9,000 with the following logic. These are north of $10K new, with advertised prices around $12-13K. This horn is in as close to new condition as you can get - it's cosmetically almost perfect. Let's call the new retail price $10K for the sake of argument. Including sales tax that is really $10,800. I'm including a Cronkhite bag that would be at least $600 new and a main tuning slide trigger that was about $1200. Add all that up and you are at $12,600. My asking price of $9,000 is 70% of that, which aligns with the logic I outlined above. It hasn't sold, so clearly I am either too high in my asking price or there are no buyers in the market, or there is no value in the bag and the mods. Given the COVID-19 effect, I would definitely think there are little to no buyers for horns in the market right now.

To answer your original question, I'm pretty sure if I dropped it to $7500 it would sell very quickly, but I'm also pretty sure if I'm patient I'll get something closer to the $9000 I have listed it for. I have the benefit of time since I don't need the cash, but I could also get tired of waiting and want to just move it along. We'll see what happens.

Good question.

[Donn]

It hasn't sold, so clearly I am either too high in my asking price or there are no buyers in the market, or there is no value in the bag and the mods. Given the COVID-19 effect, I would definitely think there are little to no buyers for horns in the market right now.

Right, and even absent that factor, there aren't a massive number of people out beating the bushes for an F tuba, and of those most probably have a very limited shopping list. With so few buyers, you kind of have to reach nearly everyone, right? before you know how the market looks. I don't know how that's done, but I bet it takes months, maybe years.

So it's my theory that selling prices for something like that are almost always low, because no one wants to wait around a year. Or to look at it another way, the market is a function of how long you can afford to wait.

I don't know, maybe that Conn 3V Eb giant bass on ebay in Elkhorn, WI is the definitive test. If that thing is ever sold at its asking price of $3.5K, you all will learn from the master of patience. How long has it been there? Years for sure.

[rodmathews]

It is definitely more limited with an F tuba. This will be the fourth 822 I've sold over the years, and I've generally had to be a bit patient.

I saw earlier in the thread that someone else also landed on my $7K price for an 822, which I'm going to assume is if one wanted to move it quickly in a normal market. Lots of variables to this problem!

[Rick Denney]

It's my contention that any used tuba that is "matched" by something that looks similar from a Chinese-sourced brand will not sell for more than that Chinese-sourced brand's discounted street price. And it has to be perfect to get that.

The days of tubas selling because they have a great story or provenance, or because they come from the heyday (or present day) of American or German manufacture are gone. The age group that respected those stories already has what it wants, or has aged out. And I should be clear: Provenance does not confer playing qualities, so it takes a buyer who desires provenance in addition to playing quality. Many of the Chinese-sourced brands have instruments that play beautifully, and are made to at least as high a standard as many American instruments of days gone by.

That, for example, limits the price of my B&S F tuba. And it certainly limited the price of my York Master, which was quite fairly priced at $4K, but could not find a buyer at that price. (It was sold for not that much less than that to a person who knew and respected the history of the instrument, as it turns out, but it needed a store to connect seller and buyer, as is often the case.) My Hirsbrunner is probably relatively unaffected by that, perhaps, but I still doubt I could get even half of what it would cost new if you could persuade Herr Hirsbrunner to make one for you (and I do know what that price is--I needed it for insurance). The dozen or two of those that have been made were all hand-made, but will Bb tuba players pay extra for that feature? Only a few. But if, say, Wessex made and nailed a copy of it, I doubt they would charge less than what I could get for mine on the used market. I know what I paid for it, which was far beyond what I thought I'd ever pay for a tuba until I played it. That's one I did not buy for its story. Same with the Eastman, which I bought solely on how it played and filled the gap in my arsenal.

For young players, new and shiny rates higher than provenance.

What could my Yamaha F tuba get? I'm strongly doubting 70% of the current retail price, especially considering that in 1991 when I bought it the retail price I paid (less a small demonstrator discount) was only a fraction of the current suggested retail price. But maybe I'm wrong. Doesn't matter--it's not for sale anyway.

Rick "not even considering the current economic conditions" Denney

[cjk]

...
What could my Yamaha F tuba get? I'm strongly doubting 70% of the current retail price, especially considering that in 1991 when I bought it the retail price I paid (less a small demonstrator discount) was only a fraction of the current suggested retail price. But maybe I'm wrong. Doesn't matter--it's not for sale anyway.

The new price on the YFB-621 is actually around $10k these days. I would agree with your doubt.

[bort]

I don't know, maybe that Conn 3V Eb giant bass on ebay in Elkhorn, WI is the definitive test. If that thing is ever sold at its asking price of $3.5K, you all will learn from the master of patience. How long has it been there? Years for sure.

There are a few tubas out there that seem like they will never sell.

Besides that Conn, the Scherzer CC at BBC has been there for a very, very long time. I'm guessing somewhere around 8 to 10 years. I've played it a few times, and thought it was a nice instrument -- nice sound, easy to play, and frankly a very pretty tuba to look at. But for $4,300, it's just more than I'd want to pay for it; it's hard to say "it's not worth the money," but more like "there are a lot of other options for the same (or a little more) money."

There are also some private sales that take a very long time, some of which eventually go through, and others of which just sit unsold for a very long time. While it could be a matter of just waiting for the right buyer to come along (particularly with unique instruments), but it seems more likely that the price is too high (again, "what else can I get for the same, or slightly more, money"? That Conn, the Scherzer, and the private sale instruments I'm thinking of would ALL sell to SOMEONE if the prices were reduced enough -- not to fire-sale prices -- but just reduced "enough."

[Matt G]

The current generation of Chinese tubas certainly has capped the market.

It still blows my mind to consider a well-built York copy for $8,000 to $10,000 now. When I was an undergrad in the mid 1990s, that would’ve been around $4k adjusted for inflation. A definite no-brainer.

[humBell]

No. I don't have the courage to participate in this thread. Nor much of the relevant background.

Unless reading it counts as participation.

Sorry for my personal short comings.

My name's hum, and I'm a cowardolic.

It has been 4 years 9 months since my last brave deed.

(That's how it goes, right?)

[Matt G]

The current generation of Chinese tubas certainly has capped the market.

It still blows my mind to consider a well-built York copy for $8,000 to $10,000 now. When I was an undergrad in the mid 1990s, that would’ve been around $4k adjusted for inflation. A definite no-brainer.

The Thor copy is no Thor.

The 186 copy is no 186.

The 6/4's - that I've spend time evaluating (most of them) - are not YCB-826S's
(Others' opinions differ...and - sure - there are no absolute "TRVTHS", when it comes to opinions regarding the playability of musical instruments...and - to degrade the value of my opinion, here, even more: I'm not interested in owning a YCB-826S, either.)

an exception: possibly build-quality aside, the PT-6P copy SOMETIMES/OFTEN outplays many PT-6P tubas...but those seem to be unicorns, now...as far as "a new one being imported/available for sale" goes...and I'm not looking personally for one of these, either.

just to clarify...I'm not arguing with your post...I just have different preferences.

To add a bit more clarification... :’)

When I was 18 looking for a CC, that’s when I would’ve bitten. I kinda did that then. I bought an early build YCB-822 to replace my 186 BBb. After struggling with that (mainly pitch issues) for a couple years, I traded it for late 70s 188. Way better.

A lot of the market is driven by college aged buyers. And they will often be attracted to big, shiny, and new tubas. For someone in my position, a lame hobbyist in my mid 40s, I have no qualms waiting and paying for quality and craftsmanship.

Good to know they haven’t truly captured the Thor and 186 characteristics.

Back to the topic, I think 6/4 tubas and F tubas are almost always going to struggle to sell in under a week since you’ve got to hope buyers are out there.

[Donn]

The days of tubas selling because they have a great story or provenance, or because they come from the heyday (or present day) of American or German manufacture are gone. The age group that respected those stories already has what it wants, or has aged out.

It sounds like you think that cohort isn't being replaced at its rate of attrition. What if it really is age related - we used to buy shiny Japanese or Czech instruments in our youth, and as the current crop gets old, somewhere along the line they'll come to appreciate a label on an instrument that says who made it, rather than who commissioned its manufacture.

[rodmathews]

I have two horns with provenance that mean something to me personally. Maybe not to others.

One is my teacher Bill Rose’s mid-1960’s Miraphone 186-4u CC tuba with a 185 lead pipe from the factory. Serial number 3536, with the stovepipe bell. He developed the Rose Solo mouthpiece on this tuba. It plays great and has tremendous sentimental value to me. He played it right up to the end of his career, and in 1989 I happened to play alongside him during his last public performance where he played this particular tuba. I don’t plan to ever sell it - that will happen after I’ve “left the building.”

The other is a Mirafone 188-5u CC tuba that my teacher Tommy Johnson bought new and played in the studios from 1988 until he passed away in 2006. I paid a fair price for it, and it’s a great tuba that I fondly remember him playing in our lessons. I can hear him playing when I play this tuba, and that means a lot to me.

Both of these happen to be fantastic tubas, so I’m not sure I agree with your two criteria, Joe. There is an option 3 - a great instrument that someone kept and used until the end of their career or life.

If I were to sell either of these I don’t think the provenance would necessarily result in any more money, but they might sell faster. That was definitely the case with Tommy Johnson’s 188 when I bought it. In the meantime I am super lucky to have them and to play them regularly.

[roweenie]

[timayer]

The days of tubas selling because they have a great story or provenance, or because they come from the heyday (or present day) of American or German manufacture are gone. The age group that respected those stories already has what it wants, or has aged out.
....

For young players, new and shiny rates higher than provenance.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I also don't necessarily agree. Younger players do tend to want newer, shinier horns, but I think the cause is not that they want new and shinier, it's that playing isn't solely for fun yet. Once enough time passes, and the realization and acceptance that we're not going to play in the Chicago Symphony sets in, then the calculus for what horn to play sets in. For myself, I found that at that point, I wanted to play a horn with some fun, history, and/or a good story. And I wanted to try different types of horns - again, for fun. My PT6 was a great horn, but it was a Very Serious Tuba.

Besides that Conn, the Scherzer CC at BBC has been there for a very, very long time. I'm guessing somewhere around 8 to 10 years. I've played it a few times, and thought it was a nice instrument -- nice sound, easy to play, and frankly a very pretty tuba to look at. But for $4,300, it's just more than I'd want to pay for it; it's hard to say "it's not worth the money," but more like "there are a lot of other options for the same (or a little more) money.""

This one is on my list of horns to test drive if I can ever arrange it. I temporarily played an old Scherzer in college while my horn was in the shop and remember it having a really nice, mellow sound. I'd love to try one again.

[Matt G]

yep...There is a 3rd possibility.

I think a whole lot of both of those players.
I met Mr. Johnson once, and sat in a not-large room (in the front) when he performed the (recently-composed, at that time) A. Russell - "Suite Concertante" for tuba & ww quintet). His playing knocked me out.

With that provenance, you’d still have to hope that the target audience exists, has means available, and has seen the ad in order for it to meet the timing criterion. I think provenance can easily leap over the trial period barrier but not necessarily the timing one.

[Matt G]

I’m fine either way, I’m just thinking about the optimization of the original question. There’s likely some weighting in the objective/cost function regarding prior ownership that could be accounted for and might be minimal, but that one week constraint is the doozy.

[timayer]

I’m fine either way, I’m just thinking about the optimization of the original question. There’s likely some weighting in the objective/cost function regarding prior ownership that could be accounted for and might be minimal, but that one week constraint is the doozy.

Depending on who the prior owner is - if it is an established professional, there is a higher likelihood that there are high quality recordings of the instrument easily available and/or glowing testimonials from live performances, which could grease the skids.

[Matt G]

I’m fine either way, I’m just thinking about the optimization of the original question. There’s likely some weighting in the objective/cost function regarding prior ownership that could be accounted for and might be minimal, but that one week constraint is the doozy.

Depending on who the prior owner is - if it is an established professional, there is a higher likelihood that there are high quality recordings of the instrument easily available and/or glowing testimonials from live performances, which could grease the skids.

Absolutely.

Then this brings an interesting follow-on question:

How many times are these put up for sale publicly by the original owner?

My own thinking is that in most cases, the owner asks a few folks, in person, if they are interested first. This likely continues for a bit of time, how long we likely won’t know. Could be a day, could be a month. Only if there are no bites would the open public know it’s for sale.

My reading of the original question was in the context of the horn being publicly listed. I think this makes a bit of difference.

What’s funny looking back on the horns I’ve sold on TubeNet, I’m pretty sure all of them transacted in under two weeks. Fair pricing and lots of photos helps. I even remember selling an entire lot of mouthpieces to one person. Same deal.

Brings up another question:

How much do proper photos and access to said photos matter? Lots of high quality photos that are embedded in the post or linked to a single gallery would be ideal. Sending PMs for photos seems counterproductive. If I am selling something, I’ll do like an honest car dealer (some exist) would:

-take lots of photos in sufficient lighting
-clearly point out damage
-show the parts susceptible to wear

In this day and age of high resolution cameras built into cellphones and image hosting services (like imgur) that strip EXIF data, I’d think there would be an abundance of image links in the for sale section.

[Rick Denney]

The days of tubas selling because they have a great story or provenance, or because they come from the heyday (or present day) of American or German manufacture are gone. The age group that respected those stories already has what it wants, or has aged out.

It sounds like you think that cohort isn't being replaced at its rate of attrition. What if it really is age related - we used to buy shiny Japanese or Czech instruments in our youth, and as the current crop gets old, somewhere along the line they'll come to appreciate a label on an instrument that says who made it, rather than who commissioned its manufacture.

I think "that cohort" has a characteristic uninteresting to many younger buyers: Collector Syndrome. Most of us grew up in leaner economic times (not Depression-lean, of course--I'm not that old--but wage-and-price-controls, oil-embargo, and double-digit-inflation lean). For me, a Miraphone 186 was an impossible dream, and I did NOT grow up "poor". My first job after college paid about six times the retail price of a 186 at the time. No, I'm not paying two months of gross pay for a tuba, when I'm already having to build an adult life basically from scratch. Had I been a music major, it would have been different, of course. So, I didn't even own my own tuba until my late 20's when I decided to start playing again, and then it was a beat-up Besson Stratford. That was followed with great joy by a Sanders--a budget Cerveny-made stencil sold by Custom Music at the time. $1500 for a demonstrator, and I thought I was really living large. Czech tubas were doing to the better manufacturers what the Chinese producers are doing now.

But by the 90's, I was able to afford what I had dreamed of owning in the 70's. That's when I traded that Sanders, plus a junk-store F tuba, for a battered 186 that I then had econo-overhauled (as in, no sandpaper or lacquer). By the late 90's, I had advanced in my career sufficiently to be able to buy interesting instruments, but I've been public about those acquisitions on this forum since 1999.

When I stand around the Army conference or chat with tuba buddies about tubas (which is shockingly not always the topic of conversation), the conversations about interesting historical instruments and collections are with other guys like me--guys who have done well enough to be able to explore such acquisitions, and with the desire to do that exploring.

I don't think that itch is as common in younger groups. GenXers had parents like me, and did not inherit this desire to possess collections of things as widely as their forbears. Millennials have doubled-down on that, eschewing possessions (mostly, it seems from my perspective, as an act of rebellion against what they perceive--not without justification--as baby-boomer materialism) in favor of "experiences". As if owning a special tuba is something we don't experience simply because we had to pay money for the privilege. This is true in most categories--a gold watch that was looked on admiringly as a sign of success in the 70's is now obnoxious ostentation, for example, and Rolex's steel sports models are sometimes more expensive on the secondary market than their gold watches, particularly if the gold is (horrors!) yellow gold.

So, yes, I think a tuba with an interesting history but otherwise a merely a good tuba may be as hard to sell as any other good tuba that has to compete with shiny, new models from brands that use Chinese production.

But I think back to the $3000 I paid for my Yamaha 621 that I bought off the TMEA exhibit floor as a new demonstrator, and the hole I had to burn in a credit card to do it, and I think times have changed.

Rick "not better, not worse, but definitely different" Denney