My helicon pair

[Søren]

Just like drow2buh did some time ago, I would like to show you the fruit of my tuba (helicon) hunting.

I have ended up with the following pair of helicons:

First one is my Weltklang (B&S built) Eb helicon (see pictures below). It plays fantastic and intonation is spot on.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... 010091.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... 010093.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... 010092.jpg


My newest helicon is a no name 4 valve Bb.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... IM0633.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... IM0632.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... IM0634.jpg
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a233/ ... IM0636.jpg

The wrap looks much like some of the horns discussed in a helicon topic in the “for saleâ€

[Donn]

And that would make mine a Cerveny, I guess. But it does not look precisely like any other helicon I have ever seen.

I'm sure no expert, but I wouldn't guess that it's a Cerveny or any close relative. It's a very distinctive looking tuba, particularly the valve linkage. If you can figure out how to get into Klaus' on-line tuba image collection, spend some time looking through them. I bet you will find some tuba with the same valves there. (Or with a little luck, he may stop by and say a wørd on this matter himself.)

[Søren]

I have a little collection of helicon pictures myself, that I have collected for a couple of years now. And the following pictures are of a helicon that was for sale on ebay some time ago. And the brand was stated to be a “V.F. Cerveny & Fils Hradec Královéâ€

[imperialbari]

Søren and I are in faily close contact with each other, even if we never met. The early winter I bought a couple of tubas from Søren.

My eyes have hitten one of their bad days, but I may return to this thread later tonight.

The widely flared Czech helicons were not common, but I have seen other samples documented:

http://launch.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group ... rowse/43f3

Depending on your browser you may have to enter via:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yo ... icPhotosX/

The only inspirations I can see causing the wide bell flares would be:

asking by US based importer, but then the samples documented I have seen have a European provenience.

an inspiration from the often relatively more widely flared Kaiserbaritöne, which have this extremely singing sound quality and then they are just so playable.

I detest the old German/Danish/Swedish military style of playing the tuba. It is anything but musical. Basically they sound like a shallow bass drum able to change the note on the fly.

All of my playable bass brasses (at least almost) are British or American by design and have quite generous flares.

Søren’s helicon very well may have started out as a Cerveny.

Far too many old instruments have lost their engravings to overly zealous buffing and polishing.

If my English comes out oddly today, then that’s it. I did my best.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre