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ANyone knows where I can go to for Helicons, used or new?


Or would it be fully reliant on independent sellers?

W wrote:ANyone knows where I can go to for Helicons, used or new?


Or would it be fully reliant on independent sellers?

http://www.wwbw.com/Cerveny-CHL-6314-BB ... 8954.music
The Cerveny BBb four rotor Helicon
This will be my next tuba purchase someday in the future...

You know what, Billy Robinson at Skyline College has 2 Eb's. Nice horns both. Maybe he'd part with one: 650-738-4383.
Dick Ackright of Oakland got my Conn Eb helicon up to A=440 and it goes good with a Parduba double cup MP. Talk to me nice (650-323-4731) and I might sell it to you for $750.
Cheers
Don MacIntosh

Is there any particular reason why you want a helicon? I've been wanting to play one myself.

PM me when you can too.

Doc wrote: He also has a sweet Cerveny Kaiser helicon for 1550 euros. Mark Rubin has one, and he loves it.

I think Mark's required a lot of work to get it converted from High Pitch, though, didn't it? Hopefully our potential helicon buyer will investigate the high pitch possibility before jumping in with both lungs.

tubahed wrote:

Doc wrote: He also has a sweet Cerveny Kaiser helicon for 1550 euros. Mark Rubin has one, and he loves it.

I think Mark's required a lot of work to get it converted from High Pitch, though, didn't it? Hopefully our potential helicon buyer will investigate the high pitch possibility before jumping in with both lungs.

Always something to think about when buying an instrument of uncertain vintage, but wouldn't we be more concerned about pitch with an old American piston model than that Cerveny, since anything like that would most likely be post WWII?

Wild reverse rotor mechanism on Rubin's helicon, looks like adjustable tension clock springs. You don't see that every day. Smaller bell than Ekle's, though.

Somebody needs to go to Serbia with a shipping container and fill it full of Amati F helicons. That is a helicon country. Serbia has only 10 million people, but there have got to be more helicons in Serbia than in the US.
I went last month and saw a parade of 44 bands from the Vranje region playing all at once. These bands were competing in preliminaries for the Guca trumpet competition. Each band had a helicon. Vranje is about 1/10th the size of Serbia.
These guys had no problems fitting into their helicons.

Donn wrote:

tubahed wrote:

Doc wrote: He also has a sweet Cerveny Kaiser helicon for 1550 euros. Mark Rubin has one, and he loves it.

I think Mark's required a lot of work to get it converted from High Pitch, though, didn't it?
Wild reverse rotor mechanism on Rubin's helicon, looks like adjustable tension clock springs. You don't see that every day.

I got mine from a fellow I met on this very BB. It wasn't for sale when I first corresponded with him, but I kept his email handy. When I hit a good patch (Soundtrack to the Newton Boys for Sony) I looked him up and he was willing to sell it.

Believe it or not, it was LOW pitched. Yes the valves are quite odd and clunky, and the "adjustable" tension is only relative. Originally, it had a little pig-tail looking extra turn on the main tuning slide. When I aquired it, I had it fully overhauled and then cut to allow transport. With great luck a late 40's Conn sousa bell assembly worked perfectly. Now I can get it at least onto an Italian train blocking the aisle and just about half way onto a Croatian elevator. Needless to say the work out paced the original cost. It is however the best sounding horn I've ever owned and has never let me down.

The 1550 euro one I've seen for sale in Germany has been up for sale for years now without any takers. The bell in MUCH larger than mine. Find a flight case for that one! Looks cool, but I already have a big helicon.

I'll vouch for Serbia and Helicons. All the bands I've worked with there use F horns, while in Romania BBbs and Fs are used together. You just cannot replicate the attack and focus of a helicon in E. European music.

As for modern horns, I'd avoid them like the plauge. The Cerveny and Amati helicons I've played here and abroad were cheaply made and unacceptably stuffy. The fact that guys can get any sound at all out of them is a testament to thier great skill and lungpower than to anything else.

Find a nice old one, make sure it's free blowing and make a relationship with a good repairman. Once you go shot gun bell, you'll never go back.

Tubaguys have an F helicon on ebay right now.