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I just gave my old King the "King Spin" (thrice to port - only way to clear the second valve) and a dead roach fell out.
Roaches are so obnoxious here in Alabama, they fly.
Could have been worse. My first school horn had a dead bat inside that I found after months of playing.
Any of you guys have any such fabulous experiences?

Here are a few things I have found in Sousaphones...
A chair leg tip in a Yamaha Sousaphone 4th branch

An ARMY nerf football inside a Conn 20K

oh...and this...found in a Conn 32K

Being a repair guy... I've found about everything one can imagine inside instruments...

- Dead starling in one of my own King 1241 tubas. Have no idea how it got there!
- Bass drum mallet head in the back bow of a Yamaha YBB-321.
- One of those 'roundish' bottles of Holton valve oil lodged in the back bow of euphonium.
- A Tuba Christmas 1983 button stuck in the back bow of a Miraphone 183.
- Many horns contained a mix of candy, small rubber balls, etc.
- A ping pong ball in the back bow of a euphonium.
- Rats and mice are actually pretty commonplace.
- One of my own 3" dent balls in the back bow of a Yamaha YBB-321 that came back to the shop because it played 'stuffy'. It was one of those 'last minute' things where I spotted an easy to remove dent right as I was putting the instrument back into the case after completing a more complicated repair. duh!
- Rolled-up music and other papers.
- A pack of 'rolling' papers. No drugs... just the papers.
- A brassiere (must have been left there after a band bus ride).
- Eyeglasses.

The list goes on. There's no end to the stuff that gets tossed into a horn. I carried an old Conn helicon in a Navy band in the Mardi Gras parade in 1965. Never did get all of the junk out of the horn!

1/2 a baloney sandwich (In a sousaphone).

a clementine, tampons (wrapped thank god), loose change, several water bottles with various ages of half consumed water/nastiness.

Schlepp sold me a Euphonium that he said played stuffy, when I got it the first thing I did was put 3 ball bearings into the bugle and what came out? A lodged bottle of sani-mist mouthpiece sanitizer.

I told him and he got a good laugh out of it.

I recently bought a Jin Bao F from a member on here. I was pretty disappointed with it when I got it, having read all the positive reviews.

About a day later I flipped it over to put it back in its case (a little bit rougher than I normally would-probably because I was frustrated with it) and I heard something rattle inside. I shook it a bit and out popped a (rather large) silica packet. It must have been lodged in there pretty well, and the horn played very well after that came out.

I found some right notes in my tuba once . I'll be damned if I know how they ever got there. They stayed there for a while but I was eventually able to beat the hell out of them and they went away .

When I had just acquired my Conn 48K Grand Jumbo sousaphone in the summer of 2010, it was black with soot and the bottom bow was almost completely banged in. It had obviously been neglected for literally decades.

When Lee Stofer and his staff skillfully removed the bottom bow, they discovered a Harper High School (Chicago) newsletter dated April 1, 1951 (it was indeed their "April Fool's Day" edition) and a Wrigley's gum wrapper from the same time period as evidenced from the old logo.

For reference, the horn had originally been built in 1930.

I finally got around to cleaning my King 1240 since I bought it and this is some of the larger stuff that came out:



A plastic wrapper, a sticky note, a wad of chewing gum, some wadded paper and a little flag from a Hershey's "Hugs" chocolate. There was also plenty of black gunk.

About 30 years ago. a pal was playing the sousaphone in the HS marching band in the big Rhody Festival Parade in Port Townsend, WA. The band stopped and marched in place on main street, right in front of the rowdiest tavern in town. A patron came out of the bar and poured a whole pitcher of beer in his sousaphone. He was only 16 at the time but had the good sense to avoid the temptation of drinking the beer that he poured out after the parade.

in a school sousaphone, i found some red and white confetti, a penny stuck side ways(thus blocking the air from passing through) and a bunch of old chocolates.