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I have heard about these for years, but have never seen one, or even a picture of one before. I had a Martin 3 Valve Recording Bass made in the 1930s. It was very large, quite attractive, sipped modest amounts of air and sounded somehow like it was being bowed like a string bass. Like a lot of us, I'll bet, I would love to adopt this one. I will have to be content with saving a picture...

Whoaaaa! You can bet that one will end up in a private collection.... as it should.

6/4, rotary valves, AND top action. Anyone want a kidney?

I wonder how it actually plays

I'm wondering if the rotors can actually be dismantled. They look blocked on the slide side. Some valves looked blocked on the other side as well.

I had always wondered if this configuration was ever actually made-here's the answer. The old catalogue that I have does say that all tubas could be ordered in top or side action, piston or rotary-and they weren't kidding! I guess that "right angle" rotary action was used by Martin since it could be used in either top or side-action setups. Cool horn!

Neat horn. I have zero interest in owning it though, even if I had money to throw around.

Personally, I could give a rats *** about those weird valves, I want to turn it around, put my valves on it, cut it to CC and
play it in my community band.
Actually, that wouldn't be any worse then putting it in a museum. NO horn working horn should be unplayed. IMHO.Brian "Goodgigs" Kane
I love to have The Weird Valve set & tubing To build a weird *** 4 valve Sousaphone.. Please let know if you end up with it.I would be happy to buy the weird valve set from you.. Thanks Harv..

Wow, a bid

Notice that it appears to have flattened tubing coming into the valves (ala 20j)

There's a conventional front valve one of these here in town and it plays very well. I have also seen this type of valve configuration on a Martin Mammoth sousaphone. I don't think Martin made any crap so it's probably a good player if the right repairman get their hands on it. And there can't have been that many made since the Martins were some of the most expensive tubas out there and this was a special order item.Good luck to the deep pocketed winner. Ed

$3,305.50 -Bloke must've retracted his $27,453.62 bid!

No, but you bought a pair of shoes on eBay. They have wings on them.

KiltieTuba wrote:Here's the Martin helicon that was on there a while ago

Wow.

I have seen that Tuba before. I nearly bought it from an auction a few months ago.

Since I don't pull the purse strings where I work, "we" didn't buy it.

Aw man....

How much did that helicon sell for?

These valves could have been imported from Cerveny.

There are some rather rare rotary valves where the bottom cap is soldered on. The top cap on the stop arm side then can be screwed off. Looks like a more complicated solution only chosen for special situations of lacking access for the bottom caps.

Klaus

imperialbari wrote:These valves could have been imported from Cerveny.

There are some rather rare rotary valves where the bottom cap is soldered on. The top cap on the stop arm side then can be screwed off. Looks like a more complicated solution only chosen for special situations of lacking access for the bottom caps.

Klaus

Nirschl used a 'front-loading' rotary valve as the fifth valve on his piston tubas that were built by Bohm & Meinl.

Tom Coffey wrote:How much did that helicon sell for?

Helicon had a BIN of $1600, and was purchased by ML.
One valve was broken, and the instrument needed other work done to it as well.

tubahed wrote:

Tom Coffey wrote:How much did that helicon sell for?

Helicon had a BIN of $1600, and was purchased by ML.
One valve was broken, and the instrument needed other work done to it as well.

Thank you for answering my question. And, wow--such a beautiful horn for that price, even needing a little work. I'll bet it will be a while before we see something like that again!