A Cynical Joke?

[Randy Beschorner]

Found this eBay listing for a "School Approved" Schill euphonium. Yep, the brand name is Schill.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 55852&rd=1

(Auction # 3741055852)

[Dan Schultz]

Found this eBay listing for a "School Approved" Schill euphonium. Yep, the brand name is Schill.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 55852&rd=1

(Auction # 3741055852)

"School Approved" indeed!! I emailed an Ebay seller to let him know that the sousa he posted as a BBb horn was actually an Eb horn. He countered by letting me know in no uncertain terms that he had the horn played by a school band director and he said it was a BBb. This was a Conn Pan-American with the dummy pipe over the shoulder.... clearly an Eb horn but I guess the 'band director' had to be right!

[Chuck(G)]

Does MENC have standards for baritone construction as the ad claims? I know there's an old OOP one for strings, but I'm not familiar with the one for winds...

[Dan Schultz]

Hey Dan and David, any help/ideas for me in this area?
Doc

I bought a Maestro 4V rotary euph a couple of months ago just for the fun of it. I figured I would honk around on it a bit and if it turned out to be junk I could at least salvage the valve set off it for a project. It just so happened that it was a very good playing horn. I had several others play it just to confirm that it was OK. However... the lacquer finish was not a very high quality... lots of buffing marks. Two fellows just about got into a fight wanting to buy it and I eventually sold it for just a small profit as I was not interested in providing a warranty. I don't know if I just happed to 'get a good one' or not but I plan to buy another one soon. I think some of the Chinese stuff might be OK but I would steer way around the Indian horns... at least until I hear some good things about them. Just one word of caution... I don't think the quality is there yet and if you buy an import, be prepared to deal with a dog. I've heard of people paying as much as the horn cost just to make it play in tune. Most of these horns are simply 'throw-aways' and parts are non-existant.

[MaryAnn]

I know of someone who bought a Chinese double French horn and who took it apart, deburred it and put it together right. He said it played very well after that, had good intonation etc. and that the problems were in finishing and not design.
YMMV.
MA