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King (and Buescher?) full circle sousaphones are fairly common. Their structure is just about the same as the one of BBb sousaphones. That leads to limits in players’ sizes because of the inevitably shorter main-circle perimeter.

The Eb sousaphones by Conn, at least all the ones I have seen documented, have a fake shoulder bow. That is: there is a 90° portion of the main circle, which has no acoustical function insofar, that it doesn’t carry any air.

The photo shows one of the not so common King "non-full-circle" Eb sousaphones. When were these made?

The shown sample is said to have the serial # of 9L905, which I can find no reference for.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

Klaus,
I have one of these right now that I am trying to sell for one of the bands I play in. This one is marked "Concertone" and looks very much like yours--the "non-full-circle" style.I learned that it was imported in the 1920's for the Montgomery-Ward stores to sell, but I never pinned down exactly where it was made. It is probably Czech, but I can't be sure. I can't locate the pictures I took right now, but I will get them to you if I find them!

I gladly will take your photos of the Concertone for my galleries. It obviously is part of a stencilling scheme.

The worst ones we see and ever saw of those are the current mainland-China ones.

I never will be the greatest lover of piston instruments from Warsaw-Pact area, also from before that area got its name after WWII. But the fact, that the Saxonians and Bohemians knew the trade of building brass instruments, has been proved again and again.

Joe S (bloke) a few months ago had a thread on a Buescher Eb full circle 4 pistons sousaphone. Sadly I cannot locate this thread, as it provided a god visual contrast to the non-full circle Eb illustrated in this present thread.

I have far too many basses, so I can tell you, that non-full circle Eb sousas are more friendly on the bodies of "grown-up" persons, than are the full circle versions. I’m no quarter-back-type, neither am I pregnant, but my belly button is reasonably cushioned. (And my basses # 9 & 10 are arriving this Saturday).

When entering the sample illustrated abov ehere in the index of my galleries, I discovered, that it was the first sample of non-full-circle King Eb’s represented there, so my original question still stands.

A bit more about stencils: I don’t like the idea of such sort of masked trading.

However I must realise, that if it hadn’t existed, many of our predecessors forming the bulk of the band movements in several countries never would have been in a social and economical situation, where their participation in band playing would at all have been possible.

Some TubeNetters were raised through the depression of the 1930’ies. I was raised in extreme poverty in post-war Germany (even if I am a thoroughbred Dane). But bands made it through these crises and probably were part of the scheme keeping up the survival spirit.

And the tuba naming my own web-projects in its own odd way is a stencil instrument. The York Master instruments were made by Böhm & Meinl (now Nirschl).

My download homepage has a link for the index of all my uploaded music files. You can download them for free, when I have received your reply to my "Welcome"-mail. Players already approved for the group in question of course have direct access.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre of Denmark
Retired teacher

Index over 45MB+ of free music files in .pdf format to be found in the Files area of:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMasterBBb/
(Approved membership required)

Index over 2.3GB of brass instruments galleries and catalogue scans to be found in the Files area of:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMaste ... PhotosIII/
(Membership is open for all)

imperialbari wrote:Joe S (bloke) a few months ago had a thread on a Buescher Eb full circle 4 pistons sousaphone. Sadly I cannot locate this thread, as it provided a god visual contrast to the non-full circle Eb illustrated in this present thread.

Klaus,
try viewtopic.php?t=10942&highlight=buescher

Not exactly this one, but the reason for the error may be with me. It may have been a Buescher Eb helicon.

It was the one, which Joe S had made look amazingly by means of a set of tools "prohibited in Washington State" with a hint to one of the other great tuba re-builders fortunately posting regularly on this forum.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

imperialbari wrote:Index over 45MB+ of free music files in .pdf format to be found in the Files area of:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMasterBBb/
(Approved membership required)

Index over 2.3GB of brass instruments galleries and catalogue scans to be found in the Files area of:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YorkMaste ... PhotosIII/
(Membership is open for all)

How do heck does one figure out what photo is in what group? Do I have to register for each Group and spend hours to locate photos of a particular horn? There are over 65 Groups! I don't have the time to manually go through all thoses to find what I want to see. There is a list of the groups and a list of the instruments, but the links to the instruments don't work. It is way too hard to navigate through your collection.

Of course my Yahoo system is quirky. But as often stated I have decided to use that free system, as it is impossible for a retired state civil servant to maintain a 2+GB commercial site and at the same time to maintain one of the largest private (that’s non-millionaire) collections of brasses being at the same time playable and representing central samples of stages of European, American, and, to a lesser degree, Asian brass instruments’ history.

The key to browsing my brass galleries is in my signature, which refers to the index of the galleries. No boasting: I haven’t come across more comprehensive brass galleries maintained neither by museums nor by private people.

My strong points are any brasses made in Central Europe, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK plus horns and low brasses made in the US. Which in some sense reflects my hardware collection, albeit the latter being only a few %’s of the galleries if counted in real numbers.

Some members of my gallery groups select their memberships from the index. Others join all of my groups, as they use them in the same way I do myself: as a reference library.

I’m not a professional librarian, which will be obvious from some in-consequences in my index. In some ways my galleries are intended for better educated scholars to amend on.

It has been known for some time, that my eyesight is not optimal. I went to a test this Tuesday to have a plan laid out for the treatment of my cataracts on both eyes. To my surprise I have severe, but "young", glaucomas on both eyes also. My eyesight should be salvageable, but the process may be longer, than I had hoped for. Fortunately I can see shapes, but letters are less fun, as I am also a dyslectic, so proofreading takes forever.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

By hazard I was lead to a King catalogue resource site, which makes it possible to date this Eb sousaphone to somewhere between 1919 and 1932.

In 1919 the Eb raincatcher was also "non-full circle", but had a different leadpipe and tuning slide wrap:

http://www.hnwhite.com/King/Low%20Brass ... 0Large.jpg

The 1924 sample shown is a raincatcher, but has a body wrap similar to the one of the sample I asked about:



In 1932 the full circle version had been introduced:

http://www.hnwhite.com/King/Low%20Brass ... 0Large.jpg

The bell-front of the sample asked about may place it somewhat after 1924, as King apparently only made a bell-front version in BBb (interesting reading, also about the available bell diameters):

http://www.hnwhite.com/King/Low%20Brass ... 0Large.jpg

There still was a full-circle Eb sousaphone in the 1963 King catalogue:

http://www.hnwhite.com/King/Low%20Brass ... 0Large.jpg

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

imperialbari wrote:Joe S (bloke) a few months ago had a thread on a Buescher Eb full circle 4 pistons sousaphone. Sadly I cannot locate this thread, as it provided a god visual contrast to the non-full circle Eb illustrated in this present thread.

Found Joe’S Buescher thread:

viewtopic.php?t=11781&highlight=reynold ... sousaphone

Klaus