Smallest Bass & Contrabass tubas

[bort]

MW182 or Cerveny 653

Lidl BBb or CC

[bigtubby]

Anati ABB-224/Amati ABB-323 maybe? Pretty tiny and play very well.

[sousaphone68]

Smallest bass tuba that I have crossed paths with is a B & H Regent Eb tuba

[Bob Kolada]

Jestadt 5 valve F; maybe their Bb's as well.

[sousaphone68]

The Regent is in the foreground

[thevillagetuba]

The smallest bass I have seen is actually an Eb circa 1920 that I have on consignment at Baltimore Brass. It takes a bass trombone mpc and is essentially the same size as a yamaha student euphonium (think yep-321).

[MikeW]

The old Besson 2-20 range has to be in contention. Tiny, but built to last.
Not just heavy, like tank - more like solid, like anti-tank.
I have one of their Eb bass tubas, and I have seen ads for the 3/4 BBb contrabass.
There's an Eb on Hornucopia, dimensions given as height 31", bell 12"

[Z-Tuba Dude]

On the contemporary front: how about the MW 182 F tuba?

[imperialbari]

image.jpg

Champion
Chicago

Obviously a stencil, but who was the maker?

The rich engraving were seen on old Bessons (and possibly on others as well).

I have a Couesnon Eb soprano flugelhorn with similar valve buttons.

A local school had a similar very small Amati/Lignatone F tuba, that I played almost 40 years ago with what I remember as my Denis Wick 4AY, small tenor trombone stem. Very easily played in the upper range, as I without preparation had to play Christmas carols (in the tenor range) reading over the shoulder of the pianist. First time I blew an F tuba, but I was quite experienced in transposing.

I always have wondered why the older piston low brasses of the European west coast, Netherlands, Belgium, & France were so similar to their Czech equivalents. Did the Czech copy the French, because they were rotary people with no piston designs of their own?

Klaus

[The Big Ben]

In the CB category, I want to say maybe the Yamaha 103. But, I just PC'd two Amati 4 piston BBb tubas and these things were tiny! Played pretty well, too.

Amati ABB223 BBb 3v "Baby Tuba" 31" tall, 13" bell dia.

[thevillagetuba]

Klaus,

I got this horn 6 years ago from a guy that had it in his attic. All I know is what is engraved on the bell.

[swillafew]

Horn dorn
Just received the MW 182 today; it's as small as I've ever seen, and plays very well indeed.