tubatom91 wrote:so nobody answered my question what is it?
It is exactly that: a Besson BBb 3-valve compensating recording bell tuba.
Unlike a lot of other companies, model numbers don't mean much with Besson, as they were (who knows what now) in their prime a company making continuous improvements to their instruments. Model numbers were assigned merely for ordering purposes to distinguish basically whether comp or non comp and whether lacquer or silverplate, and if a significant change or improvement was made, then the next number was assigned. It's a little more complicated than that, because they did have student and professional lines, but not much.
Kind of like a King 1240/1, once the basic layout of a 3-valve comp tuba was perfected by Blaikley for Boosey in the 1870's, and especially after B&H and Besson merged, the standard tuba has been basically the same ever since, with only minor variations for bore, at some point enlarged from @.690 to .730, and layout for high pitch/low pitch. About the only "major" milestones were when they quit making high pitch instruments in the mid 1960's, and when they went from a 17 inch bell to a 19 inch bell in the mid 1970's to get a "bigger" tone (which caused a whole bunch of problems, due to just tacking the larger bell on, and not taking the proper time to reengineer the whole thing, the discussion of which is beyond this thread).
If you took the recording bell and stack off and replaced it with the "standard" upright bell, it would be the same instrument I have, and as some others on the forum have, and which was considered the top line tuba Besson made at the time, and was even made contemporaneously with the 4-valve comp tubas for some years.
Again, don't get hung up on model numbers. No one really uses them in talking about Besson until the very latter years when, for example the Eb Sovereign, they had more than one model out simultaneously; and for the Eb that would be the older 17 inch bell 980, the concert model 981, the marching model 982, and the valve front Sheridan model 983, the latter three all having the 19 inch bell. More than likely, the names are used, and if it were in the UK, it would probably be called the "New Standard," while the same horn, in silverplate made for the military, would have been called the B&H Imperial. In the 1970's, with the introduction of the 19 inch bell, it would at that point be called the Sovereign.
But again, the detachable bell front models only seem to have been made under the Besson name for the US market, so those names probably don't really properly apply, either.
The non-comp and student models had other names, but I don't know what they are or which applies to which horn.
And just to make matters confusing, the same bell and bugle were made with the equally high quality in manufacture conventional or non-comp block, with the really long straight 3rd valve slide that could extend beyond the bottom bow when pulled for 23 and 13 combinations.
If you have the serial number, which is usually on the bell stack of a conventional bell tuba, although I won't hazard a guess where it might be on yours, you can cross-reference it to its approximate date of manufacture here:
http://www.saxworx.com/boozy2.htm
So there you go: you have a Besson BBb 3-valve compensating recording bell tuba, and if it's in good shape it has great tone, great intonation, and is a decent blow. Enjoy!
PS -- please tell me how you navigate around the bell to see both the director and your music stand!
