What did I buy? "Horn dorn... new pictures"

[Tubaing]

I bought this on ebay. I've been looking for a BBb for home practice and should do the job. It says Manhattan on the bell with a Skyline.


So, anyone know who made this?

[imperialbari]

From the circular bows on the slides and maybe from the bell ferrule my suspicion would be, that King is behind this one. However bloke and the other repair guys can tell a lot from the stays.

Klaus

[imperialbari]

This valve block with its valve loops’ entries and exits being on opposite sides of the valve casings (never goes for the 2nd valve) is American and wasn’t seen from European makers until Böhm & Meinl started making the York Master line based on American tools. Since then, but somewhat later, other European makers also have started making this type of valve wrap.

I am personally a big fan of this valve design because it has the least sharp bends of the airpath. I am also a fan of the Blaikley compensating design in it 3+1 versions. It has top action valves with sharper bends, but the models having found their way to my collection have bore proportions compensating for that (bad pun).

If you take a look at the Belgian front action tubas imported to the US and on the British sousaphones they all have top action valve blocks with a modified wrapping of their valve loops. All of their exit and re-entry ports for the valve loops are on the same side of the piston casings. The inner knuckles of the pistons are the exact same as on the corresponding top action models from these makers.

If bloke would be right, then this tuba would be either from B&M (who makes flatter slide bows) or be more recent. And I haven’t heard of too many recent European stencil schemes aside from the different names for the VMI instruments.

Klaus

[Dan Schultz]

Bohm & Meinl stencil.

[Dan Schultz]

Bohm & Meinl stencil.

bloke "B&M was my more specific suspicion, and TubaTinker pushes me farther in that direction."

The large branch ferrules, braces, #1 tuning slide on top, AND the fingerbuttons really smack of what I see on my Marzan (B & M) tubas.

[Rick Denney]

Bohm & Meinl stencil.

That's precisely what is indicated by the brace flanges (Rick Denney can show us a close-up of the brace flanges on his York Master, and they will be identical to these), but most of the B&M-made tubas - more often - had felt donuts in the top caps.

bloke "B&M was my more specific suspicion, and TubaTinker pushes me farther in that direction."

The buttons could be B&M, and the braces are about right. The general proportion of the tuba seems about right. But the B&M's I've seen had nickel outer slides, and mine sure does not have the rolled edges on the outer slides that I see here. And Klaus is right, the B&M crooks are oval, not circular as these seem to be.

But B&M was, as far as I know, the only German manufacturer that in the 50's made front-action piston, bell-front tubas, and I suspect they were looking to compete in the American market against King with that design. There have been many variations: My YM is different in many ways from a newer 5500, and it's also different from Klaus's YM, and from any of the Marzan variants.

I'd like to see the bell ring, and a picture of the general instrument including the bell, rather than just the detail pictures.

If it's a B&M, it could be a good instrument when put back to playing condition.

Rick "wondering if Carl Fischer had a budget brand during the time they owned York" Denney

[windshieldbug]

"Henri Selmer and Alexandre founded Selmer and H&A Selmer. They took over the workshop of Adolphe Sax in 1928. and started making brass instruments at that time, first under the Sax name until 1933, then under the Millereau name until 1939, before using the Selmer name.

While Henri was working away in Paris, Alexandre was in the US playing clarinet and building a business. Alexandre went back to France in 1918, but in 1920 the US company bought out G.W. Haynes. In 1927, H&A Selmer under George Bundy and Carl Greenleaf (proprietor of Conn) moved to Elkhart Ind. and began manufacturing brass instruments using a variety of trade names including Selmer USA, Bundy, Free-Tone, Marcil, Raymond, Signet and Manhattan."

http://www.horn-u-copia.net/cgi-bin/yab ... 847373/0#0

[Tubaing]

I don't have the tuba in my possession yet. Still in shipping but I will post pictures when I get the tuba.

[J.c. Sherman]

Bohm & Meinl stencil.

Ditto

J.c.S.

[Tubaing]

Ugh. Big dents, bell with crack, bell with oval collar, bent stems, broken braces all over.

under the engraving is 3195.

Pictures: later today maybe

[imperialbari]

bloke hints Böhm & Meinl. RD mentions wide variances within B&M models with various brand engravings.

Within the B&M made York Masters I know about mainly two set of parameters discerning otherwise similar models, In RD’s and my case the 0.750" bore 4 front action 4 piatons BBb bass:

bell-front, bell-up, or both

tight 4th valve loop wrap inside the body frame with the slide sitting under the leadpipe and between the bell and the 1st slide

or

open 4th valve loop wrap mostly sitting on the back of the body frame with the slide sitting near the back of the main bottom bow.

None of the larger B&M made front action tubas passing by my eyes have had the double knuckles on top of the 3rd loop, but they were seen on smaller front action tubas and likely on sousaphones made by that maker (I don’t remember seeing a BBb sousaphone from B&M).

One trait is seen on the York Masters and the Marzans made by B&M, but not on King and Conn: both the male and female bell collars are conical (parallelt to the tangent of the cut point in the bell stack profile).

The first set of photos didn’t show the collars,

Klaus

[Tubaing]

http://s220.photobucket.com/albums/dd18 ... /Mahatten/

[J.c. Sherman]

I'm jealous - Looks like a fun project - could even convert it into an upright bell instrument.

J.c.

[windshieldbug]

The bell ferrule looks like that on my Marzan...

[imperialbari]

The center bulb on the valve bottom caps also point towards B&M.

K

[imperialbari]

This one hardly has the 0.750 bore that Rick’s and mine have, The only other BBb bore I have seen from B&M is 0.689. Which bore does your sample have?

Took a look at the number stamped on the male collar of my YM: 2782. Who knows about the significance of this number?

K

[Dan Schultz]

This one hardly has the 0.750 bore that Rick’s and mine have, The only other BBb bore I have seen from B&M is 0.689. ....

My B & M-built Marzans (both piston and slant-rotor) are a dab over .750".

[Tubaing]

I measured .703 inch.

[tubaguy9]

Just looked for the name in the Langwill Index...Says it's a Selmer Stencil...More Specifically, here's how Langwill's index puts it:

Manhattan Trade name.
Employed by H. & A. Selmer

[Dan Schultz]

I have Kevin's horn here in the shop for a little work. I'm still puzzled over the origin of this horn. Some of the ferrules look 'King-ish' and 'Marzan-ish'. The pistons are 1.006" (25.5mm) diameter... and the bore is .727" (18.5mm). The pistons are marked 4, 5, & 6 as are the casings... typical of how European valve assemblies are batch-numbered. The pistons have stainless steel shells with brass ports, top caps, and bottoms. I don't know exactly what this horn is but I am confident that it's European. Maybe Czech or Russian. Dunno.