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Had the chance to acquire a Persy tenor tuba "model Henri Belang", probably from around 1960.
As far as I could find out, Henri Belang was an instrument maker and the last director of Persy Instruments (Brussels), before the company was ended (around 1985).
This tenor tuba has 4 valves, of which the 3rd lowers 2 tones (instead of 1,5). Earlier I have seen a bass tuba (also model Henri Belang) with the same system and a 5th valve lowering 1 1/4 tone.
My questions:
Was this system applied by more companies?
If so, during which period of time?
Does anyone know or suspect, why Mr. Belang decided to apply this combination?
Thanks a lot in advance for your comments.
Hubert

hubert wrote:Had the chance to acquire a Persy tenor tuba "model Henri Belang", probably from around 1960.
As far as I could find out, Henri Belang was an instrument maker and the last director of Persy Instruments (Brussels), before the company was ended (around 1985).
This tenor tuba has 4 valves, of which the 3rd lowers 2 tones (instead of 1,5). Earlier I have seen a bass tuba (also model Henri Belang) with the same system and a 5th valve lowering 1 1/4 tone.
My questions:
Was this system applied by more companies?
If so, during which period of time?
Does anyone know or suspect, why Mr. Belang decided to apply this combination?
Thanks a lot in advance for your comments.
Hubert

Hubert, this valve system is being called the old french system.
This was in use on French and Belgian instrument manufacturers like Persy, Mahillon and others, all piston valved instruments.
I played a Persy 4-valve bariton with that exact fingering system for years, before I bought a Besson compensating euphonium.

It was more common for 5-valve tubas to have a long semitone as 5th valve in stead of the 1 and 1/4.

When German and Swiss instruments became more popular in Belgian and French orchestras, companies like Rudolf Meinl and Hirsbrunner have produced 5-valve rotary C tubas with tuning slides to match the old French system, so that tuba players did not need to learn new fingerings for their new instrument. Rudy has even made a couple of 3 + 2 valve piston C tubas, to match the old french system even better.

In below picture, the instrument on the left is a 4/4 Rudolf Meinl C tuba with 3+2 french system, the instrument on the right is my 4/4 BBb. Next picture is a Hirsbrunner HBS290 C tuba with the same fingering system.

Thanks a lot, Oidipous.
This is an instructive day for me
Although I started playing brass in 1954 in the very Southern part of the Netherlands, this is the first instrument with the "old French system" I have got in my hands.
Never to old to....
Hubert

Rudy piston 3+2 from a Tubenet post some years ago:

And this is the Persy C tuba with long semitone 5th valve (the lower one of the 2 side pistons):

Originally the 5th valve in French instruments had a plain semitone, not a long one, so that the 2nd and the 5th valves lowered the instrument the same amount.

The 5th valve was considered a transposition valve, so that you should be able to play the same fingerings in Bb major and in A major by just pressing and holding the 5th valve.

The idea of course was absolutely rotten, as the 5th loop lowered the instrument much less than a semitone, when many valves were applied.

My 3+2P de Prins Saxhorn basse en Si bemol has these similar length loops in the 2nd and the 5th valves. The bore is different though, so the slides are not interchangeable. I pull the 5th slide, but it cannot be pulled enough to equal a long semitone as known from the 6th valve of some German F tubas.

Klaus