King Rotary Tubas (CC or BBb)

[Watchman]

Paul H. may have passed away several years ago. If he disagrees I stand corrected. and apologetic.

Yep.

[PaulMaybery]

T.J.
On the MP issue and regarding Abe. He did use the King 26 and a crusty old Helleberg. What particular Helleberg size I can only guess that it was not the Geib, though he did study with Fred. I recall tooting on it once and it had a relatively round rim. It has been a long time since my lessons in Philadelphia with Abe in 1964-69, but I coveted that horn. I managed to weasel one like it from the 1st 1940-41 batch (with papers from HN White) and used it regulary as my main tuba for nearly 40 years and just let it go last year. It was a cool horn, but had so many quirks that by modern standards I felt I could do so much better. But "cool" it is. I used the same mps as Abe, but also used a Bach 18, 24AW and a Conn 2 from time to time. I did try large babies and a Holton 52 Revelation worked wonderful on it. Big warm buttery sound. That one is similar in size to the PT88 and the copy of the Chief that Wessex offers. Smallish mps tended to back up on it when I tried them.
Best wishes. Paul

[EdFirth]

I'm looking at a King ad for New Monster Size King Basses and it has the C in .687 and .750 but the Bb is only listed at 750. I know there were probably very few .750 C's made but Dan Shultz has one so there was at least one made. I wonder how many .687 Bb's there are. Mabye they were a custom order. Paul, your C that you sold to Mark Jones is here in town. The finest repairman I know purchased it and says there was a lot of tension and that when he got everything where it wanted to be that it played a lot better. I did play it After he worked on it and was blown away.I played Joe Novotny's King when it was here for some work and your old horn was maybe even better. I own a Bb four valve with the valves straight up and down while there's another one (the guy who owns Paul's former horn owns it) with the more slanted valves. I think Meinl Weston uses the slant thing even now. They have quite a sound. To the OP, from what I hear there were about 100 Bb's and 7 C's. They were handmade, HN White was trying to keep their best workers employed during the depression, so they are all a little different. I played mine at the Candelight Orchestra at Disney at Christmastime six nights a week for the last 5 years and never got so much feedback from such a wide range of folks, The brass ans herald trumpets, The pro choir, and even the audience.One of the narrators who is a famous musician stopped me going offstage to give some way too kind feedback. I used a PT 50+ on most of those shows. It's a neat, custom horn with it's quirks but a Very fine sound. There's a college in the Midwest with four Bb's in the cases, in a storage locker. Aren't old great horns cool? Ed

[Dan Schultz]

I'm looking at a King ad for New Monster Size King Basses and it has the C in .687 and .750 but the Bb is only listed at 750. I know there were probably very few .750 C's made but Dan Shultz has one so there was at least one made......

Hi, Ed! The King rotary CC I owned is a CC with a .687" bore. Our conversation might have been a little confusing because I also own a .750" bore rotary BBb like yours.

I've never seen a King rotary CC in anything but a .687" bore. Likewise... all of the King rotary BBb tubas I've seen are .750" bore.

[PaulMaybery]

Hello Ed.

Good news to hear about the old King CC. It has gone thru a lot. When I first got it, it was almost green with corrosion and dented to beat the band. My first chore was to do a simple cleaning and polishing to see what I had. I decided to remove what little lacquer that was left - actually not much. A broken spring, some loose braces and a buzz on certain notes. It did however, even in that condition play much better than my MW, so I was encouraged. While running a snake through the lead pipe I encountered an obstruction. As I messed with it, I was able to work a 2 inch 3/8" wooden dowel out through the receiver. Hmm. The former owner knew nothing about that, but since it was also green it may have been in there for over 20 years or so.It played so much better. In the early 1980s I had an economy overhaul done on it, basically dent removal and some brace and ferule re-soldering. A local repairman rebuild the hand guard and thumb ring.

Your quote: The finest repairman I know purchased it and says there was a lot of tension and that when he got everything where it wanted to be that it played a lot better. I did play it After he worked on it and was blown away.

I am very happy to hear things are improving for the old horn. I'm hoping it has a lot of life left in it. Now that it seems to be getting so much attention, I almost have second thoughts about letting it go. But it was the right decision for me.

BTW - my wife and I winter in Florida for a few weeks. Maybe I should schedule a reunion with it some year.
Best wishes and thanks for the update.
Paul

[PaulMaybery]

Some of those Kings had various contraptions - triggers - levers etc. There is a photo floating out there somewhere with the King that Joe Novotny wound up with. It had an interesting trigger way up by the 1st valve slide that could be activated by the left hand.
If I can remember correctly, it kicked the main slide.

[Art Hovey]

I bought a used tuba from a guy in NY who had Novotny's rotary CC. I didn't see the entire instrument, but he showed me the main tuning slide with the 5th rotary valve, which had been soldered in place. The new owner (I don't remember his name) said that he planned to get the rotor un-soldered and working again. The fact that someone had soldered it in suggests that someone didn't think the original design was working well.

[Watchman]

So I saw this on the board earlier. It was really interesting video and read. Someone posted that the valves on the one in the video were at a slight angle. I also noticed that the horn currently for sale at Baltimore Brass also has these angled valves. Not all the King rotary tubas are like this, as evidenced by this picture from Vince's tuba collection.

My question is when did this feature get onto the king horns? Is this a way to tell the age of the horn, or just this another situation of the manufacturer catering to the specific needs of individual players who for whatever reason wanted angled valves?

On another note, it looks like there was at least one other company out there that went for the big spatula/backwards valve thing. I never ever saw one of those in person though. For all we know, they could be more uncommon than the Kings.

[big_blue_tubist]

Here's a picture of Bell's (in the NYPO musician's lounge c. WWII era)

NYPO.jpg

I'm captivated with that picture for some reason. Does anyone know if that was part of a series? I'd like to see more.

[Lee Stofer]

I do not think that there were 100 of the King rotary BBb's made. I do not remember the sources, but I have heard from two sources that 48 rotary tuba valvesets were made, with somewhere in the vicinity of 10-12 of them being the .687" bore that was used on the CC's, and the rest being .750" bore valvesets what were used on the large 1290/1291 BBb's. The 1290 was the 3-rotor version, of which I've worked on one, and the 1291 was the 4-rotor version, of which I've encountered three or four. I've had only one of the King CC tubas in the shop, and would consider them to be extremely rare. The CC model was basically a factory custom requested by William Bell, and I'm not sure how carefully engineered they were, as they were cut 2341 BBb's with a different valveset and leadpipe. And, CC tubas tend to have more intonation issues than BBb tubas. The 1291 BBb is a much larger instrument that has superior intonation and response, which I'd put up against most any tuba. And, in proper working order, the .750" bore rotors with string linkage are surprisingly fast. I'd guess that there were about 3 dozen made.

[Dan Schultz]

I tend to agree with Lee's post.

[T. J. Ricer]

Is this one of the King CC tubas?
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50014&start=24#p529832" target="_blank
(Louis Pirko, National Symphony).

Looks on the big side, so might be BBb (or it might be something else entirely)

-T. J.

[bort]

I saw that earlier today. It's got to be, right? Nothing else has valve paddles like that!

[Dan Schultz]

Is this one of the King CC tubas?
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50014&start=24#p529832" target="_blank" target="_blank
(Louis Pirko, National Symphony).

Looks on the big side, so might be BBb (or it might be something else entirely)

-T. J.

TJ... looks like a BBb to me.

[bisontuba]

I believe(?) Joe Novotny bought his King CC from Louis Pirko...
Mark

[bort]

I think that's the 5th valve with a very long lever that Ian was referring to earlier.

[Dan Schultz]

I don't think the King rotary CC tubas were 'cut' BBb tubas. I've attached some images of the CC bugle and the 1240 (run-of-the-mill) BBb bugle side-by-side and it's clear to see that the large bows are not the same and the CC could not have been cut from the BBb. Note that the CC bows are both longer and narrower. From my observations, the bottom bow and back bow are the same but the other large bows are not. That's not to say there might not have been another version of the King BBb tubas but those CC bows would not have been made from what we know as the 1240/41 King tubas. In the two pictures showing the open bugles.... the CC is the horn at the top. The bottom horn is an older King 2341.

Attached is a rare image of REAL CC and BBb rotary tubas side-by-side. Note that the height of the two horns is about the same... it's obvious that the bugle on the BBb is much larger. The bells will not interchange. In fact none of the parts will interchange between the two horns.