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Have some of you ever seen or tried the piston valve B&S CC-Tuba built during the GDR-time?

I did not know they had made professional piston tubas before the German reunification, until
I discovered this press release in a Demusa Musikinstrumenten Report. (Demusa was the GDR company
which controlled all production, sales and export of musical instruments and toys)

This tuba was presented in 1986 and developed under supervision of the B&S/Hans Hoyer legendary master crafstman
Herbert Fischbach.

IIRC, That model was sold in the US as the PT5P at one time. It only was sold with four valves.

I saw one being played. I briefly had a teacher who had one. I'm sure there are some people who liked it and some who didn't.

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More info. Can be nice horns, but some were better than others.

Hello Polar Tuba,

There were not many tubas made with pistons valves in the GDR but there were a few. A colleague of mine has the prototype 3199 B&S F-Tuba, which is basically a Symphonie with a piston valve set. After reunification (Die Wende) the true production versions appeared with larger diameter stainless steel pistons and plastic valve guides. The earlier versions were often nickel silver pistons with metal valve guides.

Anyone know what happened to this tuba? Ginnboonmiller apparently sold it years ago - who has it now? Handsome looking tuba, wish there were sound clips of it.

Thank you, Berliner Tuba! I once played the Piston F in Markneukirchen in 1995 or so. It had an additional set of slides and played quite well in Eb as well.I remember the pistons were narrower as the later "Big Valve" versions.

toobagrowl wrote:Anyone know what happened to this tuba? Ginnboonmiller apparently sold it years ago - who has it now? Handsome looking tuba, wish there were sound clips of it.

I'd say to ask him, but he hasn't been around here in a long time.

I'm guessing that some person bought it, liked it, and plans to keep it for a long time.

I sold it through Baltimore Brass after trying to sell directly through here for a year or two. That was probably about ten years ago or so. Great instrument with some really frustrating intonation quirks. I’d have regretted selling it if I hadn’t basically quit music a few years ago. I’d be curious about where it is now. It was on the listings here for, what, two years? And then BBC unloaded it in a week.

The prototype was made then. I owned it. The leadpipe was changed and engraved 1987. 4 valve, raw brass, 18" bell. no serial number or model number. Great instrument and rather York like.