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I believe they made far more than "20" Holton Model 345 tubas. I have counted more than 20 on different websites over the last year. In fact I'll bet there are more than 20 owned by members of this forum! There has now been three of them put up for sale in this very forum in the last month.

I had read somewhere that most where ordered for Arnold Jacobs' students. Plus there were some orders placed by school band directors. Mine was rescued from a high school in Utah.

jhaydon wrote:This is one of 20 tubas originally made by Holton as a copy of the York tuba for Arnold Jacobs to play in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet.

Bandmaster wrote:I believe they made far more than "20" Holton Model 345 tubas.

Not to argue, but what I believe the original poster implied is that this was among the first batch of 20 that Holton made.

I would like to ask if jhaydon is sure this was a BBb-CC conversion.

I would be surprised to learn that Mr. Jacobs ever played a converted tuba in the orchestra. I can list the half dozen or so instruments that he played up until about 1985. This is after 1985?

If this is the Holton I'm thinking of, it's NOT cut.

This particular horn has been cut from BBb. This earlier series of posts will answer most of your questions:
viewtopic.php?t=10133&highlight=holton+345

Although, some factory CC 345's do exist, and this post should help with those questions:
viewtopic.php?t=4662&highlight=holton+345

I don't know whether it's good or sad that I instantly remembered both topics being discussed before...

bort wrote:I don't know whether it's good or sad that I instantly remembered both topics being discussed before...

Why are they mutually exclusive?

DP wrote:In Mr Cooley's case, I'm pretty sure he had one of the few factory Holton CC's

I know he had Don Little's Holton for awhile, which was a factory CC.

The valve tubing on that looks very different from any other 345 I have seen. The valves appear quite a bit closer to the bell. Has anyone else seen one like this?

Interesting thread. I remember Floyd telling me one time that he owned atleast 6 different Holtons(not at the same time I'm sure). And he does not remember which were used on what recordings. This man has owned tons of tubas, including the above mentioned tubas(York, Hirsh parts..etc) which Bob Rusk did for him over the years. He did not start playing big tubas until late 70's early 80's. Prior to that he owned several different
4/4's. I think he said he even used a 5/4 Rudy for awhile which to my ears could easily be classified as a 6/4. Fantastic sounding tubas in my opinion.

Btw, that added 5th configuration in the 4th of the for sale horn was built by Warren Deck from what Floyd mentioned to me once.

I personally owned a 6/4 Holton/Dillon creation for awhile and loved the way it sounded. However, my Nirschl(which ironically also belonged to Floyd) is a bit easier to manage and very well should be for as much as they cost.

Pete

Lew wrote:The valve tubing on that looks very different from any other 345 I have seen. The valves appear quite a bit closer to the bell. Has anyone else seen one like this?

Since we are talking about cut Holtons vs un-cut Holtons I thought I would post some side-by-side photos for easy comparison:

Photos of un-cut BBb Holton 345's I have collected. Note... with only one exception the slide layout for the 4th valve is the same.

(My 1966 vintage Holton 345, that is being restored by Dan Oberloh, is on the lower left)

Photos of CC Holton 345's that I have collected. Note... the valve slide layouts are slightly different on each tuba plus most have been cut by removing different sections of the inner wraps. The satin silver Holton on the top center may be a factory CC, I can't remember. What do you think Bloke?


This one, I am pretty sure, is a stock factory made CC Holton 345. Note... see the non-cluttered slide layout.

Bandmaster wrote:Since we are talking about cut Holtons vs un-cut Holtons I thought I would post some side-by-side photos for easy comparison:

OhMyGod, do you own all of those Holtons now? I wondered where they all went, I didn't know they were being horded.

One of the pix looks like the horn that JoeS resurrected. It's a beauty!

The CC's you post appear to be a combination of cut and uncut. That accounts for the difference in valve section tubing. The last BBb also appears to have had valve section work done on it, maybe a whole valve section replacement.

Holton went a long time between CC orders and often, the person who assembled the last batch of CC's wasn't around to assemble the next batch or simply forgot all of the steps.

The valve sections were assembled on a jig and that should have eliminated any of the differences from the factory. The factory problems occur in the larger branches where there were no jigs to work from.

I witnessed the assembly for myself, there was a lot of running back and forth but only one major screw-up. At the end, I got to pick between two instruments. One was two inches(!) shorter than the other.

To respond to DP's question, Mr. Jacobs did use a BBb Holton on at least one occassion, a Wagner concert, if memory serves. Maybe BrianF knows (even though he was a student after I was). Roger Rocco would be an excellent source if anyone has contact with him.

I would also like to respond to the post that most of the CC Holtons are cut horns, I don't believe they are. There are a number of cut Holtons available but the factory produced a respectable number of CC's over the 25+ years. They just don't show up for sale that often.

Does anyone know how many Holtons Rusk cut to CC? If you have that information, I'd like to know how many Yorks he cut, too.

The tuba posted does appear to be a cut CC and, while it may be a fine tuba, I wonder that it was ever used in the CSO.