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tbonesullivan wrote:It all depends. With lots of major companies working with China to make affordable yet good quality brass instruments, the market is kinda saturated. There's Eastman, the Eastman by Shires trombone line, the Shires Q-series which is partly made in China. Then you have John Packer, who also makes the J.P. Rath line of Trombones, and the Packer/Sterling line of euphoniums and tubas.

Also there companies like Big Mouth Brass, Wessex, Mack Brass, and others that are importing instruments from overseas. Dillon Music now has an entire line of its own import brass.

What it's going to come down to is, essentially, how well they can compete in the U.S. market, and that is going to require a U.S. partner to work with. Looking back, it seems that Baltimore Brass used to stock a lot of Weril instruments around 10 years ago. However now they are dealing a lot in the John Packer instruments.

Now, you said that Weril stopped MAKING instruments a year ago, or are they just not EXPORTING them anymore?

bloke wrote:Though (my understanding) there's very like nickel available to be mined in South America, more nickel-brass (aka "nickel silver") would need to be used in the instruments. Albeit chrome-plated, BRASS inner playing slide tubes on trombones just don't cut it. A Swiss maker uses very little nickel in their instruments, but make up for it with titanic-gauge materials. (Still...I sometimes encounter red-rot issues with those instruments - when owned by players who heavily secrete lime in their breath.) Further (as with an R.O.C. maker) brace flanges made of same-gauge-as-the-instrument's-sheet-brass are just too flimsy, as are thin-gauge hollow brass tubes (rather than solid brass or nickel-brass cylindrical material) for bracing.

As someone above mentioned, you would be in competition with coastal PRC China's best factories - such as the one used by JP/John Packer. The most carefully-manufactured PRC instruments are not super-low-priced, but - well - I've seen some retailers selling the marginal-quality PRC products (making up for build quality with exposure/selection) for prices just as high, so...(??)

fwiw...I've been in communication (emailing em Português) with the current Weril people...attempting to buy a model J371 tuba piston body (1.001" - 1.002" diameter), as well as another part. We get up to a certain point, and I can't seem to get them to the point, "Yes...We'll ship the part. Please send XXXX-money to so-and-so place." If you are in communication with them, I'd be delighted if you could nudge them for me. I'm ready to pay, and quite ready for them to ship me the needed piston body.

T. J. Ricer wrote:I’d be interested in trying the Weingrill and Nirschl stuff they started to do a few years back (heck, maybe a decade back now). Also liked the small CC they made similar to the Yamaha 621 with the long leadpipe and different valve angle... I would think there is a US market if the price is competitive.

-T. J.