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I have a student with a Conn 56J CC tuba. The serial number stamped on his valve casing is 847038. I've found some information on the Conn website, but I can't imagine this tuba was built in 1960...? Did Conn even make 5-valve CC tubas back then?

JB

http://www.conn-selmer.com/en-us/about/ ... bers/conn/

Doesn't seem like enough digits, but then again, maybe I'm looking at it wrong -- seems like it should be in the category of "add 50 to the prefix" to find the year. At any rate, the Conn 52J, 54J, and 56J are all modern instruments. I'm not sure of the exact date, but I'd be surprised if it's more than 15 years old.

These instruments came out in the very late 1990s, if memory serves.

If your 56J looks like this tuba - http://www.instrumentalsavings.com/product-p/pv-56j.htm
Or this one - http://www.dillonmusic.com/p-2232-king- ... -tuba.aspx,
Then it's a recently built instrument.

The King 2341 BBb design in my 2nd link hit the market around 1997.
The Conn 5xJ is a modified versions of that King instrument, cut to CC and a 5th valve added.
Matt Walters at Dillon Music was part of the model development on this. See his post on the subject - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24811&start=12

It wouldn't surprise me to find that the serial numbers are actually from the King series rather than Conn since they were made at the King factory. Conn stopped making the 5xJ CC by ~2010. Others on this forum may know the exact date that the last one was made. (The King BBb is still in production.)

From information published in the Allied Catalog:

- From 1987 to 1995, the prefix number plus 50 gives you the year of manufacture.
- From 1996 to 2000, '5' preceeded the serial number.
- From 2001 the prefix was dropped entirely.

I think it's MOST interesting that the 56J is not even listed on the Conn/Selmer parts website. The 52J is but not the 56J.

Information since the 1985 UMI 'cyborg' merge to Conn/Selmer/Steinway has been pretty sketchy. As the previous poster mentioned.... your horn is probably a rebadged King inasmuch as the valveset has a .687" bore. Funny that it doesn't even show up on the C-S website since all of the Conn and King production has been merged into King except for the 20K sousaphone... which is still marketed as a Conn.

Your Conn 56J-SB was bought new on June 15th, 2006.

Thanks guys, I had a feeling I'd get a better answer here. I was pretty sure it was from the late 90s or 2000s, as some of you have said, these are a fairly recent design. Thanks again!

Jeff