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A couple of newbie questions:

What problems should I look for in a 20-30 year old BBb Mirafone that appears to be in great shape? Most of these older horns have rotary valves. Are there concerns about possible valve wear that might be hard for a novice to spot? Is valve wear common on these rotary-valved Mirafones of the 1970's or 1980's? I can;t seem to figure how to search Tubenet archives for "valve wear" as one word. Is there a trick to search these words together?

lurking around this board and reading archives, I notice on the Miraphone 191 versus 1291 that many people seem to prefer the piston valved 1291, even at the higher list prices of the 1291. They seem to be the same horn except for the valves. Why the preference for the more expensive 1291? For a 4th trombone guy moving to tuba, why wouldn't the less expensive 191 do just as well for me?

Just try playing the horn. If it plays well, then there's probably nothing wrong with it, if it doesn't, well, that's a different story.
For repairmen, a play-test is the easiest way to find problems.

For whatever this is worth, I have a 1974 Miraphone 184, rotary valves that plays wonderfully well and seems to have very little, if any, valve wear. It was used for symphonic work for most of its life before I got it, last summer, yet it was well cared for and plays nicely. I have never owned a rotary valved tuba where the valves wore, in the sense that piston valves wear (this is approximately 40 years of both rotary and piston horns). If the horn plays well, you should not worry about the valves. Miraphone rotary valves are adjustable to silence valve noise so noisy valves are an easy fix on Miraphone horns. This is me with my horn last July.

Ditto Bill's reply. I have a Miraphone rotary from the '60's and a somewhat newer Cerveny. Both still hold compression from slide pulls, and they show none of the "blowby" that made a much older piston valve Conn a chore to play. . . But, the Conn valves were replated and relapped. That improved the situation.

I have 2 older Mirafones as well, and they are liable to be quality instruments long after I'm worm food. One bad thing that COULD be is if one or more of the valves is badly corroded. But chances are that if that has happened, the horn will show mistreatment in some other, blatant way - say, like, it might look like cr*p with red spots and holes. If the valves work, and compression is good, I doubt you'll have any worries with them.

Wow... I meant for that to be a PM.

If it plays, then there's probably nothing wrong with it. I keep good oil on my linkage, as my 1st valve can be a little noisy, and I have to keep a drop of good rotor oil on the 2nd rotor to make sure it doesn't dry out and leak a bit. Other than that, even with it being a 1971, I don't see a valve rebuild due for decades.