Found this gem searching Popsci...

[jbaylies]

http://www.popsci.com/results?query=tuba" target="_blank" target="_blank

From March 1932

[The Jackson]

What a great way to solve an problem! I'm sorry this did not catch on, to be honest. Imagine the demand!

That tuba is pretty neat, too!

[David Richoux]

It would be interesting to see the "back view" of that horn, but I bet it is not much different from the last bend of a Sousaphone (before the bell ring) rotated 180° and the bell inverted - if it was made with two mounting rings it could be reverted to a standard Sousaphone shape in a few seconds!

Somebody with a semi-assembled Sousaphone (not me at this moment) could check my theory pretty quickly. I just tried doing it in Photoshop but that didn't work too well.

[David Richoux]

I used Google's new patent drawing search to find a "rear view" of this thing - pretty much as I guessed - two screw rings to allow reconfiguration (to a standard-ish Sousaphone shape) and storage.

Sottophone.jpg