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I have an old tuba about which I am trying to find information for the owner. It is in remarkably good condition to my eye if it is as old as I think it is. On the bell medallion it says: Symphony Professional Model. On the second valve it says:
"LP" and "made in Czechoslovakia" [all caps]The numerals: 37, 38, and 39 are stamped on the valve casings 1 through 3. I am to assume the LP stands for "Low Pitch"?
The bell, though badly wrinkled, seems to measure 15" diameter. The height of the instrument is 29". The width, measured at the bell flange, is 13". The weight is 10 pounds. The finish is a nicely patinated raw brass, with no hint of silver or lacquer in it's past. Other than the bell, there are very few dents I'd consider any more than minor. The receiver is definitely of the small-shank variety; a standard mouthpiece will not fit in at all. I have a Yamaha 48 trombone mouthpiece in it in an attempt to verify pitch [Eb], and it bottoms out. The receiver measures 1/2" diameter. None of the slides pull at all, so I can't measure them properly, but the *exterior* of the 2nd slide is 5/8".
I am attaching a PhotoBucket link for 10 pictures.
http://s478.photobucket.com/albums/rr14 ... ba%20pics/" target="_blank
If you have an idea of this tuba's history, please share it with us! Thanks in advance.

The first tuba that I ever played (in 6th grade) was this model of Eb tuba. It was marked in exactly the same way, including the LP which I'm certain stands for low pitch. An old style small-shank Eb mouthpiece was required but as I recall it played quite nicely. I have a photo of it somewhere that I will scan and post, if possible.
Wish I knew more about its' maker-I would say the one I played on went back to the 1920s or 30s.

From around 1900 through the '40s Czechoslovakia housed many makers of 'brandless' instruments. They engraved a variety of names on their horns and those instruments were exported to North America to become sort of the house brand for local music stores. Many of the horns I've seen have no markings at all (short of the bell engraving and "made in Czechoslovakia"). I've never seen one with a serial number. You might be able to find what store sold the horn and when they carried that brand, but I doubt you'll find much more.

A quite characteristic feature is the shape of the ferrules connecting the bows and the male branches of the slides. I have seen them before, but cannot find similar ferrules in my galleries right now.

Klaus

imperialbari wrote:A quite characteristic feature is the shape of the ferrules connecting the bows and the male branches of the slides. I have seen them before, but cannot find similar ferrules in my galleries right now.

Klaus

Exactly my impression, Klaus. They are rather more rounded than the norm, while plain. I wonder, too, about the distinctive and elegant style of the brace at the receiver? Is that a characteristic of a particular maker?
Thanks.

Belltrouble wrote:If there would be 2 of those receiver support braces in this shape it would be an old Besson instrument,but there´s only one of that particular shape,right?
what about having a look at the Amati Website??

Kurt

No, just one support brace. I checked the Amati website and found nothing on their old instruments. Even pictures of the new horns wouldn't display.
Any more ideas? Thanks.

scottw wrote:

Belltrouble wrote:If there would be 2 of those receiver support braces in this shape it would be an old Besson instrument,but there´s only one of that particular shape,right?
what about having a look at the Amati Website??

Kurt

No, just one support brace. I checked the Amati website and found nothing on their old instruments. Even pictures of the new horns wouldn't display.
Any more ideas? Thanks.

You'll probably never determine exact origin of this horn. It could be one of several shops that existed in Eastern Europe early in the 19XX's. Just be satisfied to know that it's Czech.

I've been trying to research a horn builder in Koln (Cologne), Germany... Wilhelm Monke. Thanks to 'Bell trouble', I've more-or-less determined that the shop in question never really built any tubas of their own. They bought parts and only did final assembly. The horn looked remarkably like one of the many B & S stencils from the 60's and 70's. Your horn is probably a bit older. I was just using the Monke tuba as an example.

Is that the same Monke that was famous for rotary orchestral trumpets?

Belltrouble wrote:here is a link to an austrain website dealing with Amati instruments,perhaps you find something?




http://www.amatiinstruments.com/tuba/" target="_blank" target="_blank



Kurt

Not too much there, unfortunately. Nothing on their old stuff. The picture of the ABB-221 has some resemblance, but, then again, so do many makers' tubas. It's a basic, timeless design.
I need to find a conversion table of how to translate the metric dimensions to fractional/ inches. That may help pin it down.Thanks!

scottw wrote:...I need to find a conversion table of how to translate the metric dimensions to fractional/ inches. That may help pin it down.Thanks!

All you need is a calculator. There are EXACTLY 25.4 millimeters to an inch. One centimeter equals ten millimeters. One meter equals 1000 millimeters.

scottw wrote:I have an old tuba about which I am trying to find information for the owner. It is in remarkably good condition to my eye if it is as old as I think it is. On the bell medallion it says: Symphony Professional Model. . . .

If you have an idea of this tuba's history, please share it with us! Thanks in advance.

Nothing definitive whatsoever, but I wanted to share a few leads.

Google shows links to saxes using the name "Symphony Professional," one of which is engraved "Made in Elkhart," which would, of course, be Elkhart, Indiana, USA.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2 ... tnG=Search" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Similarly designed ferrules (in a very poorly detailed photo) are shown on an Eb tuba, "Believed to be made by Bohland & Fuchs, Graslitz between 1895-1920. 30in tall engraved: Symphony, Rud Wurlitzer Co., Manufactured, Cincinnati, Ohio." (First link) This is listing # 1785 on the horn-u-copia site (second link).

http://www.horn-u-copia.net/instruments ... -Tuba-.jpg" target="_blank" target="_blank

http://www.horn-u-copia.net/display.php ... %22Tuba%22" target="_blank" target="_blank

TubaTinker wrote:

scottw wrote:...I need to find a conversion table of how to translate the metric dimensions to fractional/ inches.

All you need is a calculator. There are EXACTLY 25.4 millimeters to an inch.

Roughly exactly, anyway. The fun part, though, is the "fractional/ inches".

This is really about conversion between inches expressed in two different fractional bases, just like if you needed to be able to tell someone what a .680 inch bore would look like on a classic English caliper. I would multiply .680 by the largest fractional denominator I care about - say 64, which is 43.52. Then I'd round to the nearest integer, 44, and divide that by 2 until it's odd: 44 divided by 4 is 11, so I divide 64 by 4 also, and viola, .680 is about 11/16. (But if I had cared about 1/128, it would be 87/128.) Or you could use a table.

That last step, where you simplify the fraction, may feel kind of weird for people who are used to dealing with measurements as decimal fractions. .68 is not just another way to say .680, but apparently no one makes such a distinction between 44/64 and 11/16?

Donn wrote:

TubaTinker wrote:

scottw wrote:...I need to find a conversion table of how to translate the metric dimensions to fractional/ inches.

All you need is a calculator. There are EXACTLY 25.4 millimeters to an inch.

Roughly exactly, anyway. The fun part, though, is the "fractional/ inches".

This is really about conversion between inches expressed in two different fractional bases, just like if you needed to be able to tell someone what a .680 inch bore would look like on a classic English caliper. I would multiply .680 by the largest fractional denominator I care about - say 64, which is 43.52. Then I'd round to the nearest integer, 44, and divide that by 2 until it's odd: 44 divided by 4 is 11, so I divide 64 by 4 also, and viola, .680 is about 11/16. (But if I had cared about 1/128, it would be 87/128.) Or you could use a table.

That last step, where you simplify the fraction, may feel kind of weird for people who are used to dealing with measurements as decimal fractions. .68 is not just another way to say .680, but apparently no one makes such a distinction between 44/64 and 11/16?

Do you know how many science courses I took in HS and college, just to satisfy my Math/ Science quota? I took 2 years of algebra in 9th and 10th grade, and that's it! I have become a whiz at shop math, but all this detail scares the bejeebers out of me!
Thanks anyway.

Metric/inches is easy. If you haven't used it, just google it.
The stencils on these horns (the Amati/Cerveny relabels, anyway) can sometimes be diagnostic. E.g. the Amati stencil had many names inserted but one can tell when Sanders switched to Chinese sources.

Anyway, it's arithmetic. . .not mathematics.

Donn wrote:This is really about conversion between inches expressed in two different fractional bases, just like if you needed to be able to tell someone what a .680 inch bore would look like on a classic English caliper. I would multiply .680 by the largest fractional denominator I care about - say 64, which is 43.52. Then I'd round to the nearest integer, 44, and divide that by 2 until it's odd: 44 divided by 4 is 11, so I divide 64 by 4 also, and viola, .680 is about 11/16. (But if I had cared about 1/128, it would be 87/128.) Or you could use a table.

That last step, where you simplify the fraction, may feel kind of weird for people who are used to dealing with measurements as decimal fractions. .68 is not just another way to say .680, but apparently no one makes such a distinction between 44/64 and 11/16?

I care about 1/128, if the number I'm looking at is .680. Because 11/16 is .6875, and that rounds to .688, or .69, neither of which is .680. If the person was happy with an approximation to a fractional inch, they would have stated it as such.

It's a matter of significant figures, something we used to learn about in school, and the difference between accuracy and precision. If a person writes a number down as .680, then those thousandths are import to them, else they'd have written down .68. And if the thousandths are important, then that 1/128 is 9 of them.

It's also enough so that a slide would not fit, which gets into the accuracy part.

When I want to convert decimal inches to millimeters, I divide by 25.4. The relationship between 25.4 and one inch is indeed exact, because it was defined that way. You need the precision when dealing with a bore, because a 17mm bore is .669 inches and if you use .680 the slide won't fit.

For bell diameters, though, I divide centimeters by 10 and multiply by 4. Thus, 50 cm is 20 inches. That approximation is within
1.6%--close enough for bell diameters.

And, since there are three groups of four inches in a foot, 3 meters nearly equals 10 feet, again with an error less than 2%.

Those are all easy conversions to make, even without a calculator.

Rick "thinking people who write numbers down have some responsibilities" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:

Donn wrote:.68 is not just another way to say .680, but apparently no one makes such a distinction between 44/64 and 11/16?

I care about 1/128, if the number I'm looking at is .680. Because 11/16 is .6875, and that rounds to .688, or .69, neither of which is .680. If the person was happy with an approximation to a fractional inch, they would have stated it as such.

It's a matter of significant figures, something we used to learn about in school, and the difference between accuracy and precision. If a person writes a number down as .680, then those thousandths are import to them, else they'd have written down .68.

Right - I mean, it's up to you to decide whether 1/128 accuracy is meaningful in the context of the actual measurement, but indeed that's the difference I alluded to between .680 and .68. I'm just saying, no one ever mentioned to me in school that we ought to be doing the same with fractions. 88/128 for example instead of 11/16.

Hmph. As we were taught in elementary physics class, the concept of "significant digits" applies. Off an inch on estimating bell diameter doesn't mean much. Off 2/1000 on valve clearances means a whole bunch. It depends on context.

Rick Denney wrote:

When I want to convert decimal inches to millimeters, I divide by 25.4. The relationship between 25.4 and one inch is indeed exact, because it was defined that way.

"The meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the equator and either pole; however, the original survey was inaccurate and the meter was later defined simply as the distance between two scratches on a bar made of a platinum-iridium alloy and kept at Sevres, France, near Paris. More recently, it has been defined as the distance light travels through a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second."
http://www.answers.com/topic/metre

See also: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/meter.html

1/2.54 = 0.3937007874, which is *precisely* but not *accurately* 0.39370.

Unless you refer to the "international inch", which was defined in terms of the meter (as opposed to the much more widely accepted "rule of thumb" based on the anatomy of certain royalty).
Comparing the royal thumb with the scratched bar of platinum-iridium leads to the conclusion that there are 4*10^1 inches to the meter.

It's always possible that the Tennessee state legislature will define "cm/in = 3" - which is both equally accurate and precise.

Ken "defining doesn't make it so" Sloan

Belltrouble wrote:BTW,shouldn´t there be another thread opened to discuss the internatinal mess of different measuring systems?

This thread was opened to find info related to a tuba,wasn´t it?


Kurt

THANK YOU,Kurt!