Fancy tubas

[Captain Sousie]

Does anyone make a tuba in brushed gold? I know Monette does it with a few of their trumpets every year and I was just wondering if anyone does that or maybe some of the other tricks of Monette like bell cutouts.

Sousie

[Captain Sousie]

I assume you are talking about stock horns from the factory?

Not necessarily.

[Lew]

I saw a satin gold plated Conn monster Eb tuba a year or 2 ago. Most of the gold plating was intact on it and it was in good shape. A number of manufacturers offered gold plating as an optional finish on tubas around the turn of the century.

Of course there's the gold plated sousaphone that someone recently purchased off ebay and posted photos of in an earlier thread. I don't think any manufacturers offer this as a finish today, but I bet you could get it done if you really wanted it and had enough money.

Here's a link to some photos of the Conn I mentioned:

http://www.horncollector.com/Low%20Bras ... 20Tuba.htm

[Captain Sousie]

Considering how much the Monettes go for, I wouldn't even want to know how much it would cost. Though it probably wouldn't cost as much as Bloke's new baby.

Sousie

[Tom]

Didn't someone make a gold plated horn for Dallanbach? Wasn't it a Yamaha?

Yes, most of Daellenbach's tubas since leaving Getzen and going with Yamaha have been gold plated.

One was on ebay a year or so ago...a 621 CC in gold. The Tuba Exchange snapped it up, marked it up, and sold it.

It seems to me as if gold plating would be ultra prone to wear just from normal use of the tuba...more so than silver or lacquer.

[JayW]

While gold is soft I dont know that it would be that prone to wear? I say this because unlike silver gold is much less reactive and therefore the oils/acids in a persons skin have much less effect on it than they do silver. So for some people a gold tuba may actually be a better thing, especially since tubas usually have several large contact points. Of course the very cost of having it plated may make it impractical however.

[Lee Stofer]

The closest finish (in appearance) to a satin-gold finish offered today is a satin-lacquered finish on the new Conn/King tubas.

However, any instrument can be transformed into a satin-gold finish with bright gold trim. All it costs is money. Local pro tubist Donald Strand has a bright-gold-plated B&S F tuba that seems no worse for wear after having been in service for some time.

[Chuck(G)]

You know, a big instrument in gold just isn't visually interesting. Perhaps doing parts of it in gold wash might make it better.

But if I wanted a horn that would be a real showpieces, I'd probably take a plain brass horn down to my local auto custom paint job and commission the airbrush artists to dome something fancy in color lacquer. It'd probably be cheaper than gold plating and the result would be to die for.

How about flowers and viines wrapped around the bell stack with a paisley design on the inside of the bell? Or maybe a cartouche of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea?

It'd all be in the finest musical tradition--just look at the way some harps and harpsichords are done up.

[Steve Marcus]

But if I wanted a horn that would be a real showpieces, I'd probably take a plain brass horn down to my local auto custom paint job and commission the airbrush artists to dome something fancy in color lacquer.

Do you mean like these?

Redbell

Red euph

[Chuck(G)]

Not exactly. Look, if you can do a motorcycle up like this:



Why couldn't Schlep have this airbrushed on his tuba?



How about one of these?



Or maybe, for the starving musician, some ad space: