POLL ADDED: NOT for sale...(Just "show", and not even very much "tell")

[bloke]

Digging around, I found this old 19-1/8" x 5" (York 33 or Holton-style) bell - up in the barn attic, which is engraved:

REGIMENTAL LINE
MODEL- A
LYON & HEALY
EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTORS
CHICAGO

along with some nice engraving.
...never buffed, no cracks, no patches, easily-removable denting

I'd give it a 99% chance of having been made by Holton.
I believe - if I root around a bit - I might possibly find more of it.
I seem to recall that I salvaged it from being a support for a mailbox.

I'm sure it's identical in size/shape to my squatty Holton bell, but probably around 100 years old, rather than 60 years old.

This L&H bell isn't very scratched up at all, whereas my Holton bell (though completely straightened out) features some ugly "cut" lines on the interior. I suppose (??) I could slick this one out and swap bells, except that my mouthpipe tube would probably travel right across this pretty engraving...

...after all, wouldn't a Lyon & Healy tuba naturally offer better PEDAL-tones...??

' get it...?? GET IT...!?!?! yuk-yuk-yuk...


...and yes, I'm aware that they made some of the brass instruments that they sold (with their name on them), but it's difficult to conceive of THREE factories (clustered around Lake Michigan) that manufactured nearly identical tubas - particularly with Lyon & Healy being in the same city as Holton, and this instrument being engraved "EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTORS" rather than (as with the cornets they actually made themselves) "OWN MAKE".

[bloke]

I tossed it in the cleaning acid - while taking care of a tricky "how they hell did they do THAT ?!?!?" school-owned French horn repair.

The cleaning acid only removes deep tarnish, and does not shine...but the engraving might (??) be a little bit easier to see...

[Three Valves]

That’s just yummy!!

[Dan Tuba]

Beautiful

[York-aholic]

Nice. I have a 1900 L&H “Own Make” 6/4 bell that has an engraved picture of their factory. The serial number 377 (corresponding to 1900) is stamped/engraved on it in a little scroll. Then a 2 was added at a later date (3772 which would be 1904). As far as I’ve been able to find out, this pre-dated Holton (or York) making a 6/4 upright bell.

But I agree, the proximity of L&H and Holton in Chicago is interesting.

FDAF9FC7-26A4-4EE5-96BD-90D71E71C905.jpeg (25.01 KiB) Viewed 1022 times

[bloke]

Yeah… I’m not expert on these three makes, but - as the engraving states “exclusive distributors“ rather than “own make“ - this makes me very strongly suspect that it’s Holton made. (??)

[bloke]

Regarding the POLL that I just added on Sunday morning:
The mouthpipe tube (were this bell installed on my Holton tuba) would cross the engraved area right along the bottom of the main part of the engraving pattern, and only leaving that engraving “tail“ below the mouthpipe tube.

bloke “Not so many folks own ‘Lyon & Healy’ tubas, eh? … and even fewer consider them to be their regular/everyday work horses, agreed?”

[windshieldbug]

D. Ask your teacher

[bloke]

D. Ask your teacher

HEY DALE !!!!!

[bort2.0]

Put that junk back in the attic where it came from. You put it away and forgot it for a reason.

[bloke]

Put that junk back in the attic where it came from. You put it away and forgot it for a reason.

It may be "junk", but (other than some dents - which are way less severe than were the Holton bell's previous dents) it's potentially a whole lot better-lookin' (surface-wise, INSIDE the flare) than is the Holton, and - when someone asks, "What make is that tuba?" and I answer "Lyon & Healy", they'll just nod ignorantly (because who the hell knows about harp-makers ?)...rather than boringly blathering about Maynard Ferguson, Phil Farkas, their long-ago-sold "Glantz bar" bass trombone, their high school's old sousaphone, or whatever.
Hey...At least the company is still in bidnuss, and hasn't been bought out by The Borg.

[bort2.0]

1) Didn't know they are still in business.
2) Obviously joking. That thing is super cool and you'd better put it on something. If you want to.

[bloke]

Nearly all of my SEEMINGLY grumpy posts are posted with my tongue in my cheek...
...yet - somehow - I manage to not bite it.
(L&H only makes harps, these days. I DO own a very-VERY fancy L&H at-least-a-century-old cornet - which is also VERY large bore - VERY heavily engraved - and which is one of the "Own Make" ones.)

Louis XV Special" model - $189,000

1) Didn't know they are still in business.
2) Obviously joking. That thing is super cool and you'd better put it on something. If you want to.

That instrument still needs two or three minor flaws addressed, prior to putting a finish on it.
A "bell swap" would be a BFD, but way LESS of a BFD BEFORE it received some sort of finish.

bloke "When I grow weary of my 'creations' and sell 'em (usually, quite a few years later) people seem to be willing to pay for 'em - so I might as well pimp this one out."

[Mary Ann]

I think you should find a way to make a harp out if, so that it will stop being confused.

[bloke]

I think you should find a way to make a harp out if, so that it will stop being confused.

Hey...You know good and well that it's sexist/bigoted/homophobic to refer to it as "confused".
You're supposed to call it "alphabet".

[MN_TimTuba]

Install the new bell backwards.
1) the mouthpipe won't cover the engraving
2) it's more interesting to you than the other brass players anyway
Yer welcome.
Tim

[York-aholic]

Install the new bell backwards.
1) the mouthpipe won't cover the engraving
2) it's more interesting to you than the other brass players anyway
Yer welcome.
Tim

And the funny thing is that when I put my L&H 6/4 bell on my 6/4 York 4vFA, I did just that.

My reasoning was that it hid the (top action) leadpipe solder mark and I reasoned that I was really the only person that would care. When counting rests, the engraving gives me something to look at.

[MN_TimTuba]

Install the new bell backwards.
1) the mouthpipe won't cover the engraving
2) it's more interesting to you than the other brass players anyway
Yer welcome.
Tim

And the funny thing is that when I put my L&H 6/4 bell on my 6/4 York 4vFA, I did just that.

My reasoning was that it hid the (top action) leadpipe solder mark and I reasoned that I was really the only person that would care. When counting rests, the engraving gives me something to look at.

You just gave the Conn Naked Ladies players something to consider.
Tim

[bloke]

My shop teacher played an old Conn alto saxophone in his church orchestra. It was a Southern Baptist church. The naked lady was a full frontal nude. He put two Band-Aids over it. Yes… Really.

[bort2.0]

two Band-Aids...