Curious Tuba

[Dan Schultz]

Ever see one of these?




It's an old Getzen DEG Willson BBb 'commuter' tuba. Originally, it was a convertible tuba with a concert leadpipe and a marching leadpipe. It also came with two upright bells... a brass 'concert' bell and a plastic 'marching' and 'practice' bell. During concert season, the brass bell would be left at school and the plastic bell was left at the student's home. The body was carried to and from school in a case the size of a small suitcase. Either bell could be used for marching. The overall length is 32"... the bell is 15"... and the bore is about .640".

[bububassboner]

my teacher has one of these horns. Cool idea.

[Chuck(G)]

IIIRC, the metal bell on the thing is very heavy--and didn't this also get sold under the DEG "Caravelle" name?

[Dan Schultz]

Those were as well-made as any Willson product, and the valve section bore size is just about comparable to today's student 3/4 tubas.

I picked up one with NO bells...

...and I'm going to stick one of those OLD (small) Holton Eb bells on it...probably all the way back down at the bottom bow.

bloke "I guess I'll have a 'suitcase' body-case left over."

Hey Joe!... that bell IS off an old Holton Eb. Mine didn't come with the bells, either. In fact, the bell on this horn was rescued from my fish pond. Recognize it?



The bell tenon was cut down from one off a Conn 14K.

[MartyNeilan]

Marched with one for 2 years in high school in the late 80's - outprojected the POS fiberglass sousaphones they had and were lots of fun to spin around.
I used the brass bell for everything including marching instead of the fiberglass one. To keep it from falling off, I drilled a hole in the top side of the bell collar, so one screw went completely through and the other two just pressed against the bell collar. That kept the bell on for hand to hand tosses and 360 degree spins. The only drawback was that the horn was waaay too easy to overblow - but back then I was too naive to know better - I thought concert=dark and marching=overblown. The school had two and they were labeled DEG Caravelle. I used the best parts from both. I seem to remember that the solder joints in the 90 degree marching leadpipes kept popping. The kid who played it after me marched with the fiberglass bell - what a wuss.
With the concert leadpipe it made a pretty decent 1/2-3/4 upright tuba, but you really had to be careful not to push it too hard. I don't remember there being any obviously bad intonation issues.
I would probably recommend one for middle schoolers who want to do the over-the-shoulder marching tuba thing but can't hold up a contra sized instrument.

[Dan Schultz]

IIIRC, the metal bell on the thing is very heavy--and didn't this also get sold under the DEG "Caravelle" name?

Yes... the model 840, 848, and 850 were marketed by DEG under the 'Caravelle' name in marching convertible and commuter tubas.

[Chuck(G)]

Hey Joe!... that bell IS off an old Holton Eb. Mine didn't come with the bells, either.

The native authentic Willson bell that I saw was so heavy that it rang ke a brass ashtray when I rapped it with my knuckles. Must have been made for school abuse-use.