These play like a King on steroids

[Dan Schultz]

I owned and played one of these things for a while. Here's a picture of one next to a 'regular' Reynolds tuba. It's hard to believe that both are BBb horns.

[Untersatz]

Dan, is that the original bell on the one on the left? (removable bell)
It sure looks a little on the tall side

[Dan Schultz]

Dan, is that the original bell on the one on the left? (removable bell)
It sure looks a little on the tall side

Yes. It is the original bell. The horn played OK but seemed a little top-heavy.

I've only seen three or so of these horns in captivity. I don't think they were very popular suggesting that they were probably a bit too big to handle in the junior and high school market.

[Tubajug]

It seems that you could put a much shorter bell on it and be most of the way to cutting it to CC!

[Alex C]

Are you thinking this could be cut to a CC? I played one in high school, I remember is as a dog of a tuba. It did have the well-designed first valve adjustable trigger.

Our tubas were bell front but I have seen that upright bell before, it looks like a smokestack on one of those old wood burning locomotives.

[Tubajug]

Are you thinking this could be cut to a CC? I played one in high school, I remember is as a dog of a tuba. It did have the well-designed first valve adjustable trigger.

Our tubas were bell front but I have seen that upright bell before, it looks like a smokestack on one of those old wood burning locomotives.

I was mostly just poking fun at how tall that bell stack is (especially on the upright bell in Dan's photo) and that if you just put a shorter bell on it, you'd be most of the way to having it cut to CC. Someday I'd like to do my own King to CC conversion ala Sam Gnagey's horns and just leave it as a 4-valve CC horn. I can dream can't I?