c.1913 York Helicon

[windshieldbug]

I have been contacted by a person who would like to know if anyone has any interest in a silver York helicon. I've seen images of the horn, and it looks to be in outstanding shape, with hardly a hair out of place. I know that there are no serial number records for York, but it does have the 1910 patent High/Low Pitch loop, and I'd estimate from the serial number that it was made c.1913.

The person's name is Jack Wetherholt, and he can be contacted at jakcin@verizon.net

The horn is in Dallas, and the gentleman has 8 high quality pictures which he can send. He has not told me of any asking price, and I only volunteered to post this message, so any further contact should be made with him.

But as an aside, this is a very good looking horn, and if I didn't have several helicons already, I'd be interested!

[windshieldbug]

Bump for Jack

[Søren]

Is this horn in Eb or Bb?

[beedeesmith]

If anyone is interested in this horn, I checked it out the other day in person and it really is in excellent shape. Cosmetically, there are a bunch of pings, but all the slides and pistons work great, though the pistons probably need the guides replaced since they were a little loosey-goosey.

The horn is definitely a BBb, not an Eb horn; HOWEVER, it is tuned rather low. Even with the tuning slide all the way in, I could barely lip it up to better the 20cents flat, so if you want this horn to play rather then stick on your wall, you'll more then likely need to cut some slides.

Also of note is that the receiver is rather small in that I could barely even get a standard shank mouthpiece to get in a little bit; euro shank mouthpieces won't even fit. The good news, however, is that it also has a mouthpiece that fits it perfectly, though I couldn't tell what kind it is since there were no markings on it.

The guy selling it is really nice but not a musician, so all of this is new to him (he picked it up at an estate sell). He was under the impression from someone that if he sold a "York" (italics for emphasis) for less that $5,000 then he is an idiot, because he regularly go for over $10,000. I tried to explain to him that those Yorks selling for that much weren't helicons and why they sometimes commanded such a price, but he might have thought I was just trying to scam him to get a price break myself. So, you might have to contend with that.

Best,
-Bryan

[Matt Good]

The horn is definitely a BBb, not an Eb horn; HOWEVER, it is tuned rather low. Even with the tuning slide all the way in, I could barely lip it up to better the 20cents flat, so if you want this horn to play rather then stick on your wall, you'll more then likely need to cut some slides.

I have played this horn too BUT in my opinion, the problems with the pitch stem from the fact that the valves are in a very poor condition and need an expensive valve replate. Each valve crook virtually held NO compression.

The other problem is that the owner, Jack Wetherholt, has seen too many Antiques Roadshows on PBS. The horn is cosmetically stunning but it is not worth the thousands of dollars that he believes is its value.

-Matt

[beedeesmith]

Yes, that makes more sense on the valves. I didn't check compression, but I did notice that they moved really sloppy in the casing, but were next to impossible to pull out, like they weren't very cylindrical, and would catch at the very end.

The "Antiques Roadshow" attitude is also spot on

-Bryan