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Hi Ben,

Congrats on having such a neat horn! Old Alex's always seem to have an interesting history, and yours is no exception. I have a 163, and the only markings on it are "Nr. 147". I had heard the Spanish Army band story, and assumed my horn had gone that route. I bought my horn from Tom McLean (at least, that is the name on the mute that came with it) in San Antonio during the summer after my senior year in high school, 1976 (yes, I'm old).

I made measurements a long time ago, and the only one I remember with some certainty is the bore size at the main tuning slide: .820. My horn initially had a ridiculously large receiver diameter, too.

Keep and treasure this fine instrument. I have enjoyed playing mine for 34 years, I used it in a quintet gig this morning, and hope I'll be playing it for another 34!

Karl "got all his playing gigs with this horn" H.

Looks great! Congratulations - I hope you get many years of playing.

Awesome! Can't wait to try it out sometime.

One question -- by takes a lot of air, did you mean: "can handle a lot of air" or "needs a lot of air to play"? I've heard that mean both things before, so I'm curious.

ben wrote:You should just come on over and play the thing already!

Yeah yeah yeah... Very soon though!

When I lived in Baltimore, I got to try several Alex's that Fedderly had in the store... a couple of F's, a 5 valve CC and a 6 valve CC. I remember the CC tubas taking more air and more "steering" compared to the new shiny MW tubas filling the store. But they sounded great!

ben wrote:

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I noticed that you have your VCR tuned a little sharp