Alexander "stencil" tuba?

[windtunnel]

I've come across an older (c. 1960s?) West German 4-rotor BBb that's stenciled "Crown Professional". The layout and structural features look very similar to Alexanders that I've seen of similar vintage. I know that Alexander built stencil French horns and tubas for Giardinelli and other distributors over the years - was "Crown Professional" a Giardinelli brand, or was this distributed by another company?

Despite being in poor condition, this horn sounds great. I've attached some images of this instrument with the hope that someone can help me identify the maker, distributor and approximate date of manufacture.

[imperialbari]

Welcome as a poster on TubeNet!

Not to spoil your game, but your tuba is made by B&S of Markneukirchen in the then GDR. The give-away is the shape of the flanges for the two carrying rings and for the thumb ring. The 45° entry and exit angles from the valve block are not an exclusive for B&S, but they point very strongly in that direction.

If you want to see catalogue scans and photos of tubas from these two (and from several other) makers you may browse my Yahoo based brass gallery via the index:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yo ... %20format/

Klaus

[cjk]

Your tuba was made by B&S. It has a bore of about .748" and a 16.5 inch bell. You see those with Sonora or Meister Gerhard Schneider engraved on them.

[imperialbari]

VMI is a post-Wall-Fall ownership construction and the brand for the models formerly sold as Weltklang. The OP’s tuba looks like its from way before the Wall Fall.

Despite the communist ownership of GDR-era B&S/Weltklang they loved names with a royal reference for their own stencil brands, which they used to circumvent their own contracts about exclusive dealerships in various markets.

Klaus

[Donn]

I believe Myer's Music in Seattle sold a few of those big Crowns, maybe in the '60s.

In the late '80s, I saw one at the instrument auction at the local folk music festival, Northwest Folklife. That was back in the day when you'd put a classified ad in the newspaper - no such thing as ebay - and a tuba of that style was not often seen. The auction always drew a pretty good crowd, but word had got out, and it was fairly obvious that quite a few of us were there with the idea, or at least a fantasy, that that tuba was coming home with us. She made us sit there while she auctioned off every student trombone and plastic clarinet, and then pretended to have finished with that section, which naturally elicited cries of protest from the tuba bidder contingent. I am not sure I remember the final price, but seems to me it was around $1200, which doesn't seem like much now but was way over my limit.

[Dan Schultz]

Those horns were also sold under the names of 'Sonora', 'Karl Wunderlich', 'Gerhart Schneider', and others.... depending on the importer. In my opinion... they are better horns than the Alex tubas of similar size... just my opinion. At least you don't need 'Alex fingerings' to play one in tune.

[Tom]

I know that Alexander built stencil French horns and tubas for Giardinelli and other distributors over the years - was "Crown Professional" a Giardinelli brand, or was this distributed by another company?

As others of said, the pictured tuba is a B&S, not Alexander. You're just the latest of numerous posters on Tubenet asking if a B&S built stencil might be an Alexander, so it's not an uncommon thing to wonder about. Nonetheless, you likely have a nice instrument on your hands.

However, I'm interested in knowing more about the claim that Alexander built stencil tubas for Giardinelli as I do not believe that to be the case. I do know that Giardinelli imported many (most?) of the Alexander tubas that wound up in the United States in the late 1960s through at least the mid 1980s. However, these were not stencil tubas with a different brand name on them. They were Alexanders in every sense of the word and were engraved as Alexanders. I have two Giardinelli imported Alexander 163 CC tubas at my house right now and know that to be true at the very least for the pair in my posession.

Can you provide more inforamatiion about this? Brand names? Photos? If they did do stencils, I'd just like to know.

French horns, I don't know anything about.