TubeNet

. . . it's currently on loan to the Museum of Making Music (hosted by NAMM) in Carlsbad, CA. It's a great little museum, with lots of wonderful, historic instruments.

Having stumbled upon a new hobby of learning about Sousaphone history this summer, I decided to start posting what I've learned, in case anyone else is interested. Here's the link: http://tubapastor.blogspot.com/. I just uploaded there my photos of the very first Sousaphone.

Very interesting!

What I call the American front action valve block as seen the current King sousaphone apparently hadn’t been developed yet. This one has (but for the knuckles) what could have been the valve block of an upright tuba: the valve tubing exits and reenters on the same side of the valve casing.

Klaus