TubeNet

Boy, a gold tuba would probably dent just by holding it! No thank you....

Didn't Alexander make some solid nickle silver 163?

bloke wrote: Why are we so cheap?

Looked up "cheap" in the dictionary. It said: "see Bloke"

So I guess the answer as to why "we" are so cheap is we are all Bloke wannabes!

As I'm looking for a new tuba I went to see the UK's (only?) custom tuba builder and asked about options. He suggested that to put enough gold on a valve cap for it not to wear off through repeated un-tightening and tightening it would be £40 per cap - that's £80 per valve so £320 JUST for the valve caps.
Now, call me tight if you will but, extrapolate this to a whole tuba - or even just the tuning slides - and it's prohibitively expensive.

That said - my current tuba DOES have real gold plated tuning slides - and cost about £1000 more than the standard silver finish. It looks beautiful, as good as it sounds in fact.

Conceptually, a solid gold tuba is difficult to grasp. It would be even more difficult to hold. I suppose if you could afford a solid gold tuba, you could afford to hire the bearers it would require in order to schlep it around. I'm thinking maybe 14K gold would overcome the malleability issue, though. When are you building it, Bloke, in order to demonstrate that we tuba players ain't cheap?

I think i'd rather have a shiny laquered brass tuba..

The color is shiny enough and my parents and non musician friends call them gold tubas anyways.

TheHatTuba wrote:Didn't Alexander make some solid nickle silver 163?

Yes.

Ted Cox in Oklahoma City has the only one I know of. He's talked about it on Tubenet before, so I'm sure it's in the archives somewhere.

Is there any reason to think audiences would be able to tell the difference if we played nickel-silver or gold tubas? If so, would the improvement in audience experience be proportional to the cost of the instrument?

How about we place a platinum grill across the bell of our solid gold tuba, pour a bunch of crumpled $100 bills down the bell, and cook up some gourmet kobe steaks?

bloke wrote:Is 500 better?

Views are worth nothing, It replies that count....

Bump

I believe the real question is why flute players are such spendthrifts.

thezman wrote:I believe the real question is why flute players are such spendthrifts.

They are spending their tuba-player husbands' money.

Rick "feeding the blokebeast" Denney

KiltieTuba wrote: Didn't Miraphone make a completely nickel-silver tuba or contrabone?

Yes, I saw one back in '70. The son of a Motorola VP in Phoenix had one in the AZ All-State band.

It looked identical to the brass BBb 186's (corrected) but for the color.

Dennis