St. Petersburg question

[iiipopes]

However, contact dermatitis from nickel is very real.

Indeed. My son is that way not only with nickel, but most other metals as well, which makes brass playing interesting. I have found through trial and error he is not hypersensitive/allergic to plastic, such as nylon or lexan, gold plate, and lacquer. So he won't be doing a silver plated or nickel plated brass instrument with a conventional silverplated brass or solid stainless mouthpiece.

[Lew]

I seem to remember a used one for sale here; one of the old-style ones. I think the seller was "bassax."

Aren't the old ones generally considered to be good instruments (better than the newer ones)?

No, no, no!

The new ones have been significantly improved from the old ones. The main improvements have been to the valves, which no longer feel like they are made off steel wool, and the valve linkage which is now metal. Even if not ball and socket the new linkage won't fall apart like the old style did. The logo is now engraved on the bell instead of a glued on plate. From what I have seen assembly quality has improved too.

The few newer St. Petes that I have seen seem to be decent horns, although I still don't like the way they play, but they play and appear to be better made than the old models.

[ken k]

I am guessing the horn I have here (which is for sale BTW) is about 6 to 7 years old. I knew the original owner, who unfortunately passed away about 4 years ago, which is when the present owner bought it from his widow. The original owner had become somewhat of a St. Petersburg junkie at the time. He always told me about how great the horn was for the money. He was quite a player too so it was not just some hack happy to get a cheap horn. He was a violin maker by trade who played bass and tuba. (The violin making business must have been pretty good because this guy went through tubas like I go through underwear.) He seemed to have a different horn every season and was really into geting old Holtons and Yorks fixed up and even sent some of his horns to Chicago (?) to be kryogenically frozen. So he was a bit of an eccentric when it came to tubas. Anyway he latched on to the St. Petes and ended up buying like 4 of them, including two of the famous black beauties. I must admit they are puurrty. So now there are a few of these floating around our town. The present owner wants to sell it, since he also has one of the aforementioned black beauties. I have it to show to a student and also to satisfy my curiousity, after reading all the tirades against them on this site.

Again this horn a pretty nice horn especially when the price is factored in. I saw new ones on the tuba exchange site are only $3195! It has a buzz in the bell on certain notes. I would have to investigate the cause if I were to by it. It reminds me alot of a czerveny piggy, wrapped fairly small with a surprisingly large tone. i guess the bore size is fairly large. I would also like to put the old leather band around the bell like we used to do back in the 70's to help hold it together at louder volumes. If I had a spare 2K laying around and had a use for a BBb tuba (I play an Eb primarily) I would consider buying it.

ken "Not intending to start a St Pete tirade but just thought I would share some of my experiences with a horn." k

[iiipopes]

I would also like to put the old leather band around the bell like we used to do back in the 70's to help hold it together at louder volumes.

The best thing for that now is to get a length of clear plastic 5/16" od - 3/16" id tubing from any good home improvement store (mine was $.14/foot, so to do a souzy bell was all of $1.05 including local sales tax!), take an exacto knife or rig a jig like Sam Gnagny uses, split the tubing along its length, and affix it to the bell rim. You get the same damping effect, plus it is a good rim protector and invisible from a distance as well. I have done this both to my instruments to good effect.