KING SERIAL #'s

tofu · Post by **tofu** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:30 pm

I'm dating some King Sousaphones for one of my groups, but have only found a couple of sites that have dates up to 1975 and number 575,000. Are there sites for post 1975 horns? One of the horns has a number in the 99X,XXX range and the numbers stop at 575,000 in 1975. Another one has a letter C in front of the numbers and has only 5 numbers - C35XXX. None of the serial # sites show a letter in front of the serial number.

Any ideas?

Dan Schultz · Post by **Dan Schultz** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 12:03 am

99x,xxx would have been manufactured in 1986 according to the lists published by Allied. From '87 to '95 there should be a prefix number that when you add 50 you get the year of manufacture. 1996 thru 2000, a '5' preceded the serial number. From 2001 onward, it's just a wild guess.

I don't have a clue what the 'C' is. Are you sure it's not a disfigured number?

Conn used the 'C' on instruments made in 1963 and 1964... but I don't know of King using letter.

There may be other information out there somewhere, but this is what appears on the serial number lists I have.

tofu · Post by **tofu** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 12:37 am

TubaTinker wrote:99x,xxx would have been manufactured in 1986 according to the lists published by Allied. From '87 to '95 there should be a prefix number that when you add 50 you get the year of manufacture. 1996 thru 2000, a '5' preceded the serial number. From 2001 onward, it's just a wild guess.

I don't have a clue what the 'C' is. Are you sure it's not a disfigured number?

Conn used the 'C' on instruments made in 1963 and 1964... but I don't know of King using letter.

There may be other information out there somewhere, but this is what appears on the serial number lists I have.

Thanks - I had been able to date the one we had bought in 1931 and your info dates the one we bought in the mid eighties. We traded with the Univ. of Iowa in 1960 for 4 more and I was able to date three of them. The one with the C looks like maybe someone could have added the C but the 5 numbers look to be a factory imprint. It has a 1st valve slide at the top of the 1st valve/the third valve has two slides on top so I think it is a King 1250. Other than that I'm not sure when it was made since I don't know how long the University had them before we got them. The HN White site would date the 5 numbers alone as 1910-1915. Would they have been making the 1250 then?