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I don't know the answer to your question, but that seller ends up with instruments of this caliber fairly often.

Ha! I just ran across this horn while browsing ebay and was going to ask about it. Any guesses as to key? We're assuming it's a "hot" tuba?

Hmm. I can't find them now either. He's had a couple of Kalisons and at least one 186 that I can recall. Not saying they're not stolen, don't know anything about it. I paid attention because of his location, which is not far away from me.

Buddy of mine plays the same model. They are BIG 6/4's but sound great!

LJV wrote:I've owned a number of tubas that were surplused out of service in one way or another from US public institutions (schools, branches of the military). Only a couple of them had any sort of markings on them outside of the maker's serial number.

I don't know anything about this seller or this particular tuba (other than they weigh a ton), but since this seller has sold surplus tubas (and surplus stuff in general) in the past, I wouldn't have any reservations bidding on it.

FWIW

Exactly. I'm trying not to say more than I know for sure, but I very seriously doubt there is any problem here.

Here you go, the seller posted this,
most likely after His ears glowed red....
SERIAL # W3725

When we (the military) get rid of our equipment for one reason or another it all ends up on pallets for auction at some point. If there is just one item on a pallet that you want, you have to buy the entire pallet, resulting in the purchase of possibly numerous random items that you have no interest in. That could be how the seller has a history of other seemingly random items for sell. Also it is not unusual for us to get rid of perfectly good equipment either. For my unit the life expectancy of an instrument is 7 years. We all know that if horns are taken care of properly, 7 years is a pretty short life for an instrument. We have actually gotten rid of a few instruments over the past few months that I was very tempted to hunt down on the auction block just so I could put them up on ebay because they were still in great playing condition.
With all of that said, it doesn't suprise me to find instruments online that are considered to be from surplus and they not have very much information about them.