ycb-826

[danzfat]

not only can prowinds get it but so can http://www.dillonmusic.com/p-699-yamaha ... -only.aspx" target="_blank" target="_blank

[Ferguson]

Any dealer can order it. The 826 tuba is in stock in Yamaha's Buena Park office. They tried to get me to order one, but I knew better.

SF

[Michael Bush]

Any dealer can order it. The 826 tuba is in stock in Yamaha's Buena Park office. They tried to get me to order one, but I knew better.

SF

Have they changed things so it would actually be delivered now? (A purely academic question...)

[Ferguson]

Yes, they raised the price, and there's a recession.

/snark

SF

[Michael Bush]

That's what I figured. Thought I'd ask, though.

[TheHatTuba]

I would wanna take self defense classes for the tuba if i ever was blessed enough to get one of these

[sousaphone68]

$36000 I would rather buy an RV who has a paying gig in this world that would ever make you enough to justify buying this instrument. I know I live in a backwater of Europe but there cant be any solo tuba players who would use this enough and while symphony players are paid quite well because they are usually classified as first desk they would be a long time pulling the money back from symphony work.

[Steve Marcus]

Any dealer can order it. The 826 tuba is in stock in Yamaha's Buena Park office...SF

So one no longer needs to be among the elite "invitees" to be granted permission by Yamaha to acquire a YCB-826, regardless of whether you have the $36,000 available or not?

The story was quite different just a few months ago. This was posted on TubeNet December 21, 2010:

Stopping in to a local musical instrument store a week ago to buy a bottle of valve oil, I was met by a young, enthusiastic, new employee. After he retrieved the valve oil for me, he sprightly asked, "Is there anything else that I can get for you?"

I couldn't resist his youthful naïveté. "You're a Yamaha dealer, right?"

"Right," he confirmed.

"OK," I could hardly contain a smirk, "Could you get me a YCB-826?"

"If it's a Yamaha, sir, we can get it!" he replied. "I'll look it up."

After a moment of scanning through his list of model numbers, he smiled and reported, "Yep, that's correct, sir. We'll special order it for you. I'll call our rep and find out how long it will take."

"Don't go to any special trouble, now."

"Oh, that's OK, sir. No problem."

I didn't want to leave the clerk with a false impression, so I gently advised him, "You know, this is a pro instrument in very limited production. It has been reported that Yamaha still chooses who is well recognized and/or accomplished enough to buy one of these tubas because there is a waiting list and they build so few each year."

"That's OK, I'll find out for you. I'm sure that we can get it."

So, I had to leave the store confident that the rookie would learn his lesson about blithely offering anything that appears in the catalog.

This morning, I received a phone call from Jeff.

"Mr. Marcus, I found out that we can have a YCB-826 for you here by April."

I was a bit incredulous. "You're talking about the YamaYork CC tuba that sells for $30,000, right?"

"Well, it's $35,000. Do you still want us to order it for you?"

I told Jeff that I really appreciated his positive attitude when I had met him in the store and, admittedly, was "yanking his chain" when he offered to get anything for me. I thanked him again and told him that I knew how and where to get the word out to anyone who was seriously interested in a new YamaYork.

So, if anyone is ready to order one, I'll connect you with this Yamaha dealer who's there to serve you...!

Chris Olka responded:

I'm not proposing to speak on behalf of Yamaha Corporation in this post. However, as a Yamaha Performing Artist and owner of two YCB-826s I may be able to shed some light on this. These horns are very limited production. Last I knew there were 2-3 floating around North America between Yamaha Corporation USA and Canada. These would no doubt show up in any Yamaha inventory database that authorized dealers could search. Also, because they are issued stock numbers they will appear to be available to order. So, anyone that is a Yamaha dealer could look it up in the system and go through the process of starting an order. However, once the purchase request makes it to the top of the food chain, so to speak, the people in charge of reviewing the orders and vetting requests of this type would most likely intervene and find out more specifics before processing an order for one of these horns. As far as I know, they are still restricting the availability because of the cost to manufacture them. While I know that $35,000 seems like a lot of money for a tuba (And it is, I know because I've bought two) the expense to produce these completely handmade horns is not fully covered by the sale price. In other words, Yamaha does not make any profit on these models. The price merely offsets the cost and allows the Yamaha tuba designers to offer a Top-End professional instrument.

Is there suddenly excess stock, available for anyone with the $$ to purchase, of a model that just a short time ago required one to meet certain "professional qualifications" and then wait for months , with no option of selecting or play-testing from several specimens of the same model (i.e., you had no alternative to accepting what Yamaha shipped you--even granted their excellent service record)? Did Yamaha miscalculate when projecting how many professional tubists would be anxiously waiting for their "turn" to receive a YCB-826?