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Two mint raincatcher works of art loose at the same time. Not quite time travel, but close. Wow.

Every time I see a horn like this I can't help but wonder if somebody at swap meet traded what he thought was a deformed sousaphone for a box of old records....and that guy must of thought he was getting a great deal.

Some of the story may be on Lee's site--there is a reference to the shop foreman, and it may have been made for use in the band at his daughter's wedding.

What an odd horn. Fat-throated raincatcher bell with little flare and short action pistons (maybe even shorter than Conn's short action pistons?).
I've never seen an old Holton with braces, flanges and ferrules like those. The flat-band ferrules look very Pan-American to me. All old Holtons I've seen have those rounded 'wedding band' ferrules. Maybe Holton had outside help on this one?

My initial thought was "eh whatever..." then I saw the bell...

HOLY SMOKES!

That is cool. Really not something you see every day. Especially the "trough" attached to the bottom caps with a water key,. Really cool stuff.