Gretsch Sousaphone - Stencil?

[huskerdooo]

Hi all,

We just bought a very inexpensive sousaphone. It is marked Gretsch American. I have searched around and it seems like this might be some stencil variant? I was curious if anyone had any information on its origin or could perhaps date it. It looks like there were some posts here from 7 years ago from a similar one, but they did not provide any photos to ID. The bell is 26" and the bore is 6 3/4".

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Seth

[huskerdooo]

Thanks.

It seems like some of their other instruments (e.g. sax) were Conn or Buescher stencils, so I thought I would post some pictures to see if the configuration reminded anyone of another brand.

I am not sure what you mean by gap? Is that a fitment aspect between the mouthpiece and tube?

[tubasaz]

Bohland & Fuchs ??

[huskerdooo]

I googled up some Bohland & Fuchs images, but they do not seem to look close. Bloke is right about the wire type braces this thing has, but I couldn't find anything Czech that looked close either.