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Rubber-Ducko wrote:... I found a pic of this tuba I took last summer in a jazz camp. Is it a B&S PT-4 ? or maybe PT-3... anyway, no doubt it is black...

Maybe you could post a copy of the photo for us to view.

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It's almost certainly a VMI produced tuba. It's hard for me to tell the PT3 and PT4 apart visually but I think it is extremely likely that it is one or the other. My guess is leaning closer to the PT3 because of the relation of the main tuning slide to the bottom bow.

Cost? Probably not dramatically more than the normal laquer version for them to produce it.. possibly less because I would imagine the black would cover a multitude of sins. In all likelyhood they charged a slight premium to the original buyer because it was a special order.

Now.. To have that done to a 'normal' horn wouldn't be so cheap due to all of the labor stripping off the old laquer, preparing the surface, and applying the new. I have a friend that owns a repair shop that can do the colored epoxy bake on laquers. I never asked him what it would cost to do a tuba but I got the distinct impression it wasn't cheap.

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That is an awesome looking horn...

I always wanted to get a silver plated horn and get 'flames' on the bell (engrave them into the brass, then lacquer the flames with a reddish gold lacquer)...

Wonder if I could ever get it done...