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A few years ago I was given a 1981 BBb King Sousaphone, but with no valves or tuning slides. It belonged to a university marching band and when they purchased new sousaphones, they tossed these and stripped them of their parts. Every so often I try to look online but it seems that parts for this horn are difficult to come by. Aside from the missing pieces, the body of the horn is in great shape. I was wondering if anyone might have some insight to what my options are with this horn?

https://imgur.com/a/K9RNVHw

Did they strip the parts as they sold them, or were they already stripped? Doesn't make much sense to keep parts for sousaphones that they aren't keeping. It's not like they'll fit anything other than a King BBb Sousaphone. More likely, that is one of the horns that they "borrowed" parts for to keep up horns that were damaged.

As for getting parts, I don't know if there is much hope, other than finding a king valve block from a sousaphone that had a trashed bugle/bell. Unfortunately there are LOTS of sousaphones out there missing all kinds of parts. Baltimore Brass has lots of them sitting on top of their shelves, which were "donated" to them once the schools that owned them found that bringing them back to operational status would end up costing far more than buying new ones.

I've found an older BBb King Sousaphone for sale. Does anyone know if the valves and slides on the older horn will fit mine? They've got nearly 40 years between them but the layout of the slides and valves looks nearly identical. Both are pre-1985.

Boston.Tuba wrote:I've found an older BBb King Sousaphone for sale. Does anyone know if the valves and slides on the older horn will fit mine? They've got nearly 40 years between them but the layout of the slides and valves looks nearly identical. Both are pre-1985.

Probably. The issues will be wear and consistency of the notching of the valve guides: if the older valves are worn from bad maintenance or a player always pushing on the side of the valve button instead of straight down, everything may need to be replated, trued, relapped and valve guides filled and recut. Or, if you are lucky, plug-and-play.