TubeNet

where can I get old horns for really cheap. I got some projects that I want to undertake and want to get some horns to do them with.(would love a three valve GG contra)

bububassboner wrote:where can I get old horns for really cheap.

What do you call cheap?... and what are you looking for?

Seriously... check out pawn shops, 2nd hand stores, and your local schools. Forget about Ebay. Most junk on there goes for premium prices these days.

There's an Olds 3-valve that is a few decades old with a broken valve stem in the basement of my undergrad -- pm for details so you can call and make them an offer.

Try antique stores, Not the fancy ones that sell roccoco (sp?) furniture and paintings, but the antique "malls". I routinely cruise through these and see horns for $20 to $80 all the time. I actually bought a nearly mint (except for tarnish) Silver York double bell eupnonuim for $30! I'm absolutely serious! You don't trip over stuff like that But I did! Needless to say I had the biggest @#$tty-smile on my face at the check out.
Musical instruments are not something that a lot of antique guys know much about. They just buy Estates full of stuff. Many have "booths" in these malls that they fill up with whatever. Some of that whatever may be just what you are looking for.

Regards,
Bonde

Next time you're in a restaurant like a Bennigan's or FGI Friday's, look around. Sometimes they have horns hanging on the wall as part of the "15 pieces of flair" (Office Space reference!). All they care about is the look -- maybe if you have an equivalent-looking piece of junk you could engineer a trade. Wouldn't hurt to try.
Years ago I played in a joint that had what *might* have been a Holton 345 hanging on the wall, just for looks. I am kicking myself to this day for not checking it out.

what I mean is horns that need work. Need cleaning, news parts ect. For example, my grand-pa is a prototype engineer(he makes new stuff for intel and others) and he wants to teach me to use his tools to make new parts and things like that. We have already done some things together(cut an Eb to an F, made some sweet mouthpeices things like that) and I'm trying to find the best places to get horns that I can learn to build parts and learn to repair with. So any help would be nice. Thanks.

You know, http://www.shopgoodwill.com occasionally has a terminal-condition tuba (no valves, wrinkled like tinfoil). You could have some fun with one of those.

At Dillon. 45 bucks. And they got two or three other "parts" horns.
http://tinyurl.com/2jtgth

Find yourself an old high school (at least 100 years old) whose band has used the same facilities for the past 50+ years and never got rid of anything they acquired. OR...

If you hear of a 100 year old high school whose band has been using the same facilities for the past 50+ years AND THE BAND HALL IS BEING RENNOVATED... they will be happy to get rid of EVERYTHING THEY DON'T NEED.

I got a couple of decent Buescher upright tubas (from about 1915--BB-flat and E-flat) from my own alma mater this way! I figure they were from 1915, because I saw a picture of them in a school annual from that year.

Never burn bridges with your old school.

Local music stores... we have horns that it's just not profitable for us to fix. However, hobbies don't have to be profitable.

Bob1062 wrote:That's not too bad lookin; I wonder what's wrong with it to have a price of 95 clams.

You can call Matt and ask him--he'll tell you. He might even be happy to offload unusable practice parts for cheap if asked nicely.

Rick "who has paid much more for something that looked pretty similar" Denney

Check with LeisureTime Music LLC in Rolling Prarie Indiana. They sell regularly on ebay and specialize in acquring used and abused (their own words) school horns. I've found them to accurately describe the merchandise and provide good pics. Try to get to them before some one works on the horn in question as they do try to get them in decent playing condition.