Need a Travel Tuba

[LoyalTubist]

Hey-ho everybody.
My wife and I are planning a round-the-world trip in a few months. I want to bring a small tuba that most airlines would consider a "personal item" to bring into the cabin. We will be flying premium class (First/Business). In 2006 I bought a 1923 Cerveny E-flat tuba (marked as "Carl Fischer") and I took that with me when I moved to Vietnam in 2006. Sadly, I had to part with it when I moved from Saigon to Cagayan de Oro (Mindanao, in the Philippines) in 2008 because I was only allowed to own one tuba (you'd think Vietnam would be more restrictive in that area). I purchased that tuba for under $300 on eBay from a woman in Brooklyn, New York. It was sent as parcel post in a plain brown corrugated cardboard box. That box ended up being small enough to be placed under my coach seat on United Airlines. When I sent through security the agents actually said, "Wow," when the X-ray showed there was a tuba in the box. One asked if it was a euphonium. I told her, no, that it's an E-flat, which is a small tuba. (It's nice when they ask nice questions about our gear.) I have done the thing in the past when I bought a seat for my Mirafone 186-5U CC (it was just overhauled) about 45 years ago. Interestingly, the fare for the tuba was more than for me in that I got a military discount and the tuba was considered a civilian. Yeah, the tuba and I both got meals but when I got off the plane in Philadelphia, there was fresh snow on the ground. So I slid and I fell on top of my newly overhauled tuba. (Sigh.) We Southern Californians are not too accustomed to that kind of weather.

Our trip will start at Los Angeles and go to Lagos, Nigeria, via Atlanta. From Lagos, we go to Johannesburg with a short layover in Nairobi. In South Africa. We will stay in Joburg and Durban. We will also take daytrips to Lesotho (less-SOO-too) and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). We have some important business to do in Amman, Jordan. Originally, we were planning to fly from Joburg to Ben Gurion Airport in Israel and stay two weeks in Tel Aviv. But you know for the past few months there has been a war between Israel and Palestine. So we've decided to skip Israel and go to Geneva, Switzerland, for a few days. My high school band went on a European tour in 1973 (we were in Geneva for a week) and I'd love to see how the place has changed in 51 years. We plan to cross into France here too. From Geneva, we will fly to Amman. I don't know why it is, but Royal Jordanian uses an Embraer (tiny Brazilian airplane) which has the same checked baggage allowance, but Business Class passengers can only carry half as much cabin baggage. We will probably be there for 3-4 weeks. From Amman we go to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates). Etihad Airways offers a free theme park stay in Abu Dhabi and we will take advantage of that. The main theme parks at Yas Island include WB World, Ferrari World, and Sea World. Our next main destination is Lahore, Pakistan. I have a friend who has a Christian orphanage there and I would love to see what it's like and work with them there for a week. (One of Besson's tuba manufacturers is less than an hour from Lahore.) Our next stop will be Singapore, via Colombo, Sri Lanka. I think we will be in Singapore for two weeks. We plan to take the ferry to Batam, Indonesia, and drive into Johor Bahru, Malaysia. From Singapore we will fly to Beijing. We have some important banking business there and I don't want to be there any longer than we need to be in China. Our last country will be the Philippines. We will stay in Metro Manila. Then we will fly into the United States at Guam. And after that we will be at Waikiki for a few days, then fly home into Ontario, California. (It confuses people when you start off a trip at one airport and return to another airport.)

So, I need a tuba that can fit under a premium class seat. Since I'm over 65 there is no chance I will be asked to sit on a wing seat (they sometimes don't have the space under the seat). I saw that one company makes a tiny E-flat tuba with three rotary valves and weighs about 15 pounds (including the bag for carrying). Wessex makes a couple of travel tubas (I like the E-flat version better than the BB-flat version. The latter just looks odd and creepy, although I really shouldn't be that picky about appearance if it fits our needs.)

Thank you, everyone.

[circusboy]

Sounds like quite a trip. Espionage, right?

This question comes to mind: If you're traveling around the world via first-class air, why are you looking for a used travel tuba instead of just buying a new one?

[LoyalTubist]

Who said I was buying a used tuba? I am looking for a new one. I bought a used one that I took to Vietnam many years ago. That's not what I am doing here.

[circusboy]

Ah. My mistake.

Nearly all of the posts on this forum are folks looking for something used that is available new in order to save some $$. You're looking for advice on models/specs, apparently.

If not espionage, maybe small arms import/export?