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Just arrived via Greyhound (shipped Saturday from FL, arrived today in Lincoln, NE, by the way) is my "new" Bach Mercedes tuba! I like these little tubas and am looking forward to putting in some work on this one. It will need a new bell (it's got lots of tears and creases), a couple braces are loose, and there are some dents to be worked out, but the valves and compression are still very good. I've only had it a few hours, but I'm very pleased with amount of horn I got for the money! More to come as I set about putting this back into better condition, but right now it still plays very well!

Here it is with my 20 month old, who also loves it! Sorry for phone photo!

What's the story with these horns? They are Olds stencils right? Can anyone fill me in?

Tubajug wrote:What's the story with these horns? They are Olds stencils right? Can anyone fill me in?

Some are 'Olds'. Some are 'Reynolds'. They shared many of the same parts as the Bach model 869.

So what would I say the model/number is on this tuba? Because I recall seeing a Bach Mercedes tuba with rotary valves as well.

Sure looks a lot like my O-99 with no 4th. What is the bell diameter on yours?

tbn.al wrote:Sure looks a lot like my O-99 with no 4th. What is the bell diameter on yours?

It is a 16 1/2" bell

Cool horn!

Tubajug wrote:So what would I say the model/number is on this tuba? Because I recall seeing a Bach Mercedes tuba with rotary valves as well.

I think you would be safe calling your horn a Bach model 869. There are still MANY parts available for it.... except for the bell!

The story the way I recall it is that Bach bought the tooling and made the tubas themselves, though I suppose it's possible that they bought some quantity of instruments in various stages of completion along with the tooling. I don't know what details would vary under Bach manufacture - for example, would the valve stems be more robust? (The 3rd valve stem on my Olds was broken off and replaced by some jury-rigged thing that wasn't very solidly attached to the piston.)

Here is a link to a long post with some good historical info. According to this info, yours would be an 869.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=33942&hilit=ebay+treasure" target="_blank" target="_blank

TubaTinker wrote:There are still MANY parts available for it.... except for the bell!

Ha! Of course.....since that's the one I need the most.... Oh well!

Thanks for all the info folks! Keep it coming if you've got any more!

So if I'm looking to get a manufacture date on it, would I search for Bach serial numbers or Olds/Reynolds?

Tubajug wrote:... So if I'm looking to get a manufacture date on it, would I search for Bach serial numbers or Olds/Reynolds?

Go here: http://www.musictrader.com/serialnos.html

Something ought to compute.

The serial no. is 62376, so the Bach list from Dan's suggested site puts it at 1970. That looks like the likely candidate, because the Olds serial numbers don't start until 73000 and Reynolds numbers would put it in 1961, and I just don't think it's that old.

From reading the other thread posted above it sounds like Bach didn't even get the tooling until around 1980, so that confused me, but oh well. I'm not terribly concerned when it was manufactured, just interested is all.