Pan American 52K

Dutch · Post by **Dutch** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 2:27 pm

A Pan American 52K sousaphone is offered to me for sale.
It has a 24" bell, about the bore I am not sure.
Anyone out there who is familiar with this horn?
Are the Pan Americans comparable to the Conn **K series?

Thanks

Dutch

windshieldbug · Post by **windshieldbug** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:29 pm

Pan American was established in 1917 by Conn to produce student line instruments. That doesn't mean that a sousaphone is lower quality, just made by a different arm of the company.

Lew · Post by **Lew** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:37 pm

I have an old Pan American instrument catalog from the 1920s that lists a model 52K as the larger of their 2 Eb helicon models. Their sousaphone model numbers were 58K and 60K. They re-used model numbers over the years so they may have changed 52K to represent a sousaphone.

Pan American instruments were generally not significantly different from Conn models available at the time. They just have less fancy braces and less engraving, and they didn't make their largest models in the Pan American line. I would guess that the 52K is probably like a Conn 32K.