Old Horn Finally Playable

[Rick Denney]

I just wanted to post a pic of my old Cerveny BBb KaiserTuba. It was built around 1898-1900 and I bought it about 6 years ago at an auction for $400.

Just to look at it, you would not think it was that old until you noticed the high-pitch/low-pitch loop on the main tuning slide.

I wonder if these were used in orchestras at the turn of the last century, and if so, under what conditions. Judging from the photo, if the bell is 20 inches, the outer branches are perfectly huge--at least as big as any so-called 6/4 piston tuba.

The wide bell really gets my attention. The famous drawing of the 1872 Cerveny Kaiser that is in Cliff Bevan's book shows nearly no flare, and valve branches running off at odd angles. A lot of water passed over the dam between 1872 and 1898, apparently, and a lot less since that time. The outer branches without the valves might be thought to resemble a Lyon and Healy BAT.

Rick "who wishes we knew more about the fertile and dynamic period of tuba development between 1870 and 1920" Denney

[Tubaryan12]

I am having my linkage replaced next month at Baltimore brass and i hope it turns out as well as yours did

[stardude82]

Hrmm, that brass-aluminum story sounds fishy. I'm pretty sure adding aluminum to copper and zinc would just make the metal weaker per weight. It's probably just thin skinned like all the other Czech horns. If they were crazy enough to do it though, pure metal aluminum was first synthesized in 1882, so it is possible.


(UCLA '04, B.S. in Material Science and Engineering)

[Chuck(G)]

Hrmm, that brass-aluminum story sounds fishy. I'm pretty sure adding aluminum to copper and zinc would just make the metal weaker per weight. It's probably just thin skinned like all the other Czech horns. If they were crazy enough to do it though, pure metal aluminum was first synthesized in 1882, so it is possible.

Actually, Aluminum goes back much further. Oersted first isolated metallic aluminum in 1825; Wöhler improved on the process and in 1827, determined basic physical characteristics. Both men used metallic potassium (Oersted used an amalgam). In 1854, Deville developed a process using metallic sodium and set about (with Napoleon III's backing) mass production. Pure aluminum was exhibited at the 1855 Paris Exhibition.

The credit of the modern electrolytic process usually goes to Charles Hall, but Héroult obtained an earlier French patent, and the USPTO turned down many earlier applicants using a similar process, citing "prior art" (because of Humphrey Davy's work on electrolysis of fused salts).

It was really the availability of relatively cheap electricity that made aluminum affordable.

It's a fascinating story.

[Rick Denney]

Tell me about the valves, those can't be the originals.

Why can't the valves be original? Cliff Bevan includes a drawing of an 1872 Cerveny with very similar looking valve, as long as you are talking about the valves themselves.

I agree that the paddles and linkages have been replaced. The original would have had sculpted round buttons, clocksprings, and either an S-linkage or a string linkage.

I sat next to a fellow playing a helicon at a TubaChristmas on Sunday. The instrument was dated from 1893 and was made by Cerveny. It had valves similar to what is pictured here (but with buttons and S-linkages as I've suggested above). In fact, the whole valve body, including the valve branches, would fit on this instrument.

Rick "thinking right-angle string action dates from several decades before the turn of the last century" Denney

[Matt G]

Eveny Cerveny I have seen from that era has use a graduated valve, meaning the 1st vavle is smaller than the 2nd ect. THose valves look uniform, which means they might have been replaced sometime in the last 100 years.

.830 at the 1st and 2nd valve slides, .860 at the 3rd and .870 at the 4th valve.

While I know that the pic isn't at the best angle to see this, I do believe that they are graduated.

I think the guys is probably right on and these valves are original.