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Hello, one and all.

Today the local brass repairman had me come back into his work area while I bought some music. He had a tuba he wanted me to look at. As soon as I saw the bell and slide setup, I knew it was a Meinl-Weston 25 or carbon copy of that horn. Thing is, due to braces and what not, it looks at least 20 years old. Also, (and I am probably getting the terminology wrong,) the repairman showed me the valve arms, which were riveted on the paddle end and have a uniball on the valve end. This is something I've never seen before, in any tuba. The other strange thing is that there is no model engraving or marker, and no serial number. Any idea on where this horn came from? Some other info: bell was a two-piece, with horizontal seam near the top and vertical seam towards the body, leadpipe was a two-piece(!) with a split down the middle and a ferrule holding it together, ( and I think it is factory-original.) Other than that, it looks exactly like a MW 25. Any thoughts?
Aaron Hynds

Sounds like a first generation Yamaha YBB-641. Measure the bell, if it is 16 1/2", it may be. Also, the lacquer on the originals was really thick and gave the horn a yellowish color. The thing that points me to a 641 is the two piece leadpipe. I have seen older 641's that had no markings on them at all. Remember, the slide set-up on the 641 and 25 is almost identical.

Chuck"wild guess without pictures"Jackson

I have a Meinl-Weston-Getzen on the bench right now that matches your description. The links are indeed peened onto the finger paddle assemble and there is a single unibal on the stop arm. It's the original set-up. Sometimes folks overlook the Meinl-Weston serial numbers thinking they are some sort of school ID. They have hand-engraving on the outside of the 2nd rotor housing.

It might be a Yamaha, but I still think it is a MW. The manufacturer pic of the 641 shows only two main valve slides in front of the top bow, whereas the horn I'm talking about has three, like the MW. Then again, I may be looking at it all wrong, in which case it could be anything!

There is an old MW 25 in the stable at the local state university that is like that.