My Lyon & Healy Tuba

[Tubajug]

I've been looking around on Horn-u-copia trying to find examples of my tuba. I've been moderately successful and wanted to share some of what I've found. It is an "F. Jaubert & Co." model. If anyone can offer any more insights into the history of my tuba, please chime in.

This is the only image available under the "Makers" section on Horn-u-copia going from "Lyon & Healy" to the "Jaubert" section. It looks similar to mine, but perhaps has been modified with a longer main tuning slide to play to modern pitch?



I couldn't get this image to link, but here's another one that seems to have a similar modification (assuming it's a modification on either of them)

http://www.horn-u-copia.net/picture.php ... n-Make.jpg

I looked in the "Library" section a while ago and found this under the 1912 catalog. It is the only one I found marked "F. Jaubert & Co."



I clicked on the same 1912 catalog today and a different catalog showed up. It was labeled as a 1894 catalog (further confusing me...). But this is the page I found with a tuba similar to mine. It is labeled as an Fb tuba, perhaps explaining why mine played so sharp (even with the leaks) so as to sound as an E.



If you have any more insight, please share! Thanks!

[iiipopes]

My undergrad used to have a L&H Eb tuba with a small bore, large flare bell to, I believe, 19 inches. I borrowed it a few years ago. Horrid. Even when I finally spent the $$ on it to have proper valve buttons fitted so proper felts and corks could be installed to line up the valve ports, it played so out of tune with itself that generations of players, all grabbing the long loop main tuning slide between the receiver and the valve block, had worn all the silver off of it.

Fortunately, there was a storm which flooded the basement of the music hall a few years ago which deteriorated the MDF shelving and it, and several other substandard instruments, were relieved of their misery by the falling stacks.

[royjohn]

I think Lyon and Healy imported a lot of instruments, although I think they did make some in their own factories. I believe the F. Jaubert's were stencils and I suspect there may not be a real Jaubert maker, just a name. Who knows who made it. Langwill would perhaps tell you whether there was really an F. Jaubert maker. It isn't a great surprise if this is not a great horn. Another stencil, a cornet, was the J.W. Pepper "Surprise." The joke is that it's a surprise when it's in tune, so there may be a tradition of low cost, lousy stencils.