Franz Michl Baritone
Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 4:00 pm
Greetings!
Today I got an old Franz Michl Bb Baritone. I gave it a thorough bath and got all the slides moving nicely, and the valves working very quickly and quietly. Some small cleaning and adjusting still to do, but it is a surprisingly well working instrument. It takes a modern small shank trombone mouthpiece and plays in tune at 440 Hz with the main tuning slide all the way in. No problems playing my normal repertoire on this one!
Does anyone of you vintage horn experts know anything interesting about this horn? I found some info, yet not much, on horn-u-copia and on some old German discussion boards. Any guess how old it might be? The shield says "Musikinstrumentenfabrik Franz Michl, Graslitz i./ Böhm. Gründungsjahr 1881" and that refers to the Michl family business that was founded in 1881. Any word of the Michl family's craftmanship and reputation in the business back then? My own guess would be that this could be a pre WWII horn, maybe from 1920-1930s or so? Please enlight me if I'm totally off on this one.
It's intact except for the lower marching hook (plate missing). On the inside of all three valve caps is number "12" stamped. Some small dents on the bell and outer bow, I will have those I can't fix myself done properly some day.
Regards,
Martin
Today I got an old Franz Michl Bb Baritone. I gave it a thorough bath and got all the slides moving nicely, and the valves working very quickly and quietly. Some small cleaning and adjusting still to do, but it is a surprisingly well working instrument. It takes a modern small shank trombone mouthpiece and plays in tune at 440 Hz with the main tuning slide all the way in. No problems playing my normal repertoire on this one!
Does anyone of you vintage horn experts know anything interesting about this horn? I found some info, yet not much, on horn-u-copia and on some old German discussion boards. Any guess how old it might be? The shield says "Musikinstrumentenfabrik Franz Michl, Graslitz i./ Böhm. Gründungsjahr 1881" and that refers to the Michl family business that was founded in 1881. Any word of the Michl family's craftmanship and reputation in the business back then? My own guess would be that this could be a pre WWII horn, maybe from 1920-1930s or so? Please enlight me if I'm totally off on this one.
It's intact except for the lower marching hook (plate missing). On the inside of all three valve caps is number "12" stamped. Some small dents on the bell and outer bow, I will have those I can't fix myself done properly some day.
Regards,
Martin