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Denis Wick and Vincent Bach used to have American and European shanks. The American shanks would fit the vast majority of tubas (American, German, Japanese, Taiwanese, Swiss, Chinese, Brazilian) and the European shanks fit the old tiny mouthpiece receivers of Besson and Boosey & Hawkes tubas. In the early 1970s, Besson had conformed with the other tuba manufacturers, with regard to bore size.

Scooby Tuba wrote:FWIW, the source for this is Matt Walters of Dillon Music ...

The references to "Dillon" did kinda give that away (especially to those of us who've seen it before) ... but it's good to have that made clear.

Observations and comments:

1) Make sure you thank Matt for posting his article, and

2) Denis Wick does still make the .490 shank as a regular stock item for all the old Bessons (like mine) still floating around. I have both a 1 and a 2.

3) Mike Finn has done a run of MF4's with the small shank as well.

4)The term "Euroshank" is now used more to refer to the .530 larger than American standard shank, rather than the smaller .490 "British" or "Old Eb" shank.

5) Some tubas, like the Conn 56J, have a receiver that will work with both the American and the Euroshank mouthpieces, depending on how much gap you want, or how much you want the mouthpiece to set up in the receiver.