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I have been asked to sell a tuba for my brother; the horn was used during HS years by his grandson and he now has no use for it. I bought the tuba from Dillon's for him 4-5 years ago, used and in excellent condition then. Since, there are a number of small dents, but none of them appear from the pictures to be crucial to the sound nor particularly serious. I am in New Jersey and the tuba is in Eastern Tennessee, so I can only go by the pictures from my brother and his description.
The tuba is a Besson, BE-787, serial # 848***, BBb in lacquer finish. It has a factory hard case in decent condition. The pictures can be seen at: http://s478.photobucket.com/albums/rr142/scottw_bucket/" target="_blank
My question, before I list this in the for-sale section, is what value should I place on it? What is a fair price for a nice, 3-valve,3/4 size tuba?
Any help will be appreciated.
Scottw

I bought one of these about 3 years ago for the school, in about this same condition for $750 I believe. Was a good little horn for the elementary school band.

bloke wrote:There never has and never will be a pat answer to this question, regardless of the good or service.

Recognized. I am simply looking to price it in accordance with what seems to be a fair consensus, then negotiate if I cannot sell it at that price. I simply need a starting point.
Want it?

Where in East TN? I can help if you want... Im in the area.

Let me know,

-andrew

scottw wrote:

bloke wrote:There never has and never will be a pat answer to this question, regardless of the good or service.

Recognized. I am simply looking to price it in accordance with what seems to be a fair consensus, then negotiate if I cannot sell it at that price. I simply need a starting point.
Want it?

Start at $1,000. Negotiate from there. Heck... a new case for most any tuba is going to be $400!

Bloke is right about the price. You really won't know until you try. I understand trying to ball-park a figure.

Your ability to sell this for what you want will depend on a few things: 1, your ability to find a customer (i.e. craigslist, eBay, cold calling etc.)and 2, The demand of that particular market.

These are pretty good horns and you should be able to fetch close to what you are after on eBay. If you sell to a store or dealer, you are going to get less because they are going to buy it for less than what they expect to get for it and also try to factor in any possible repairs to the final value that you are paid.

Just my two cents...

That tuba can be found with several different names, such as "Stratford", etc.
It has a larger bore than the otherwise comparable Yamaha YBB-105, which is very popular for beginners. It also has more intelligently-designed valve tubing, with large-radius bows at the bottom, which result in less water gurgling. Apparently those good qualities are not widely appreciated, however. In the past year about a dozen of them have been sold on Ebay, for prices ranging from $103 to $550. But that last one had only a soft case. Yours appears to be in much better condition than most of them, and also has a hard case.

It is also the ideal tuba for a student switching from euphonium, since it is not much bigger and has a similar shape. Any good euphonium player can get used to it very rapidly.

The Dillon's website is a nice reference for used asking prices.