Very old (+100 year) 5v F pistion tuba

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Søren
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Location: Denmark

Very old (+100 year) 5v F pistion tuba

Post by Søren »

I just wanted to document a tuba that I rescued a couple of weeks ago. It is an old small 5 piston valve F tuba made in Copenhagen, Denmark by V. Schmidt. The valves are (from closest to the bell and down):
1: Normal first valve (One whole step)
2: Normal second valve (A half step)
3: Normal third valve
4: Long second valve (long half step)
5: Normal 4th valve

While none of the slides move, and there is a dent big enough to have separated the guard plate from the tube, it plays well for a ~100 year old tuba, but intonation is of cause not up to modern standards. Surprisingly, it takes a modern shank mouthpiece and the valves are only medium worn. The main tuning slide is not bent by accident, but sits in an upward angle so that it clears the upper main bow. I know that it came from the factory orchestra of Guld and Marstrand (glud-marstrand.com) and was purchased from there in 1968 when the orchestra closed and has been hanging on a wall since.

An older version of this tuba is described in the tubaexchange collection (Vincent and Ethel Simonetti Historic Tuba Collection). The one I have has more modern valves
https://simonettitubacollection.com/ins ... er-pumpen/

If anybody has more information (Klaus?), please share...

If any of you need a tuba like this, you can have this for what I paid + shipping. I have no use for it, but thought it was too bad that it should end life as a flowerpot.
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Heliconer
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Re: Very old (+100 year) 5v F pistion tuba

Post by Heliconer »

Pm sent :tuba:
A bunch of metal fart noise machines
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imperialbari
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Re: Very old (+100 year) 5v F pistion tuba

Post by imperialbari »

Great find, Søren!

My only comments would be that the 3rd valve rather is a long whole step making the concept of this tuba a double tuba in F & C with the 5th valve being the shift valve. Each side then has only two valves.

The fingerings from the 3rd partial C and down could have been something like this:

C 0
B 2
Bb 1
A 12
Ab 124 or 34
G 5
F# 45
F 0
E 2
Eb 1
D 12
Db 124 or 34
C 5
B 45
Bb 35
A 345
Ab 1235 or 1345
G 12345
F# missing
F 0

Klaus
Søren
pro musician
pro musician
Posts: 219
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:54 pm
Location: Denmark

Re: Very old (+100 year) 5v F pistion tuba

Post by Søren »

There has been an overwhelming interest in this tuba. It has already found a new home where it will be restored and played.
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