TubeNet

Vince Simonetti (former owner of the Tuba Exchange in Durham, NC) is the only guy I know who can answer this sort of question.
Here's his website - http://simonettitubacollection.com/ His contact info is on his website.

He is very responsive to questions, and is a fantastic wealth of tuba knowledge. He is one of the few guys I can think of with specific knowledge about the Russian tubas.
Probably because he helped bring them to the US market.

Ask Stas Cheremushkin - he'd probably be able to find out if you asked him nicely.

I mean, what do you need to know for?

Vince mentioned once when I was visiting that he worked with George McCracken, (if I remember correctly) in developing actual "Specs" for machining parts that require precise tolerances such as the valves and other moving parts for the St. Pete tubas. For a long time they had a horrible reputation. I've seen some of the early ones. Those plans/specs were sent to Russia to help them make more consistant instruments with much greater precission. When machining coordinates and tolerances are determined and machines actually calibrated, production has the ground work to have something a bit more "concrete" to shoot for. More than likely the St. Pete website does not 'air their dirtly laundry' and discuss some of those matters publicly. Suffice it to say, their quality has greatly improved.

They used to use vodka and borscht to oil their valves over there,

just like they use it for transmission fluid in old Ladas.

Hi there,

Does it look like this?
Old Soviet tubas can be quite easily be found here west of the Russian border I have had a 3-valve E flat and I was very happy to sell it. I bought it myself of a retired player at a flea market in Tallinn, Estonia. Pitch was suprisingly good, and usually is, but the valves and overall playing experience was quite horrible. Good news for you if you found a good one! Enjoy!

Regards,
Martin

Does anyone else remember back when you could buy a St. Petersburg from Die Tuba (via their very primitive website) for like $900 ?

They would even upgrade the linkage for you for a small up-charge. I believe all were raw brass. Around the same time the Tuba Exchange started to push them but in nickel plate.

Tom wrote:Does anyone else remember back when you could buy a St. Petersburg from Die Tuba (via their very primitive website) for like $900 ?

They would even upgrade the linkage for you for a small up-charge. I believe all were raw brass. Around the same time the Tuba Exchange started to push them but in nickel plate.

I remember it well... possibly because it was one of the first websites I ever went to. You could even get a tenor or bass trombone.

Take a trip in the WayBack machine...

http://web.archive.org/web/199910121808 ... /tuba.com/

^ Patterson-Gimlin tuba?