Has anyone ever owned/encountered a Holton B♭ tuba like this one?

[bloke]

"piggy" style...(tall upper bows)
yet big bell flare

I've never seen anything like it before...
I'm pretty sure it's a large (5/4, but not 6/4) B-flat tuba...
I've only looked at some pictures, but not the tuba itself.
It was on eBay...

[LargeTuba]

is that seller that peddles elementary school cr@p

[Yorkboy]

Looks like Holton's version of a York 33 (IIRC I think I saw it in a scan of a Holton 1960s catalog - the engraving matches that era).

Maybe called "Collegiate" Model 560 or 650?

Did you get it? I tried but was outbid

[humBell]

Sorry for bein' slow to respond.

I got a my hands one something like this off a tubenetter in Northern Indiana a number of years back as kinda of my first Holton at the time, representative of what a Holton sound would be like. It was cleaned up a whole lot, and might be a size larger (>20" bell, if i recall) and came with a custom made hard case, but it was definitely stubby in the same way, bell really close to top bow. I played with it in one group for perhaps half a semester, until the percussion folk complained i was sliding it in between the timpani, as it was heavy enough i didn't want to lift it up to the shelf where the tubas go in the band storage area.

Huge, really focused sound, though i perhaps was traumatized when the conductor kept asking for more volume from me when i was blowing my brains out (i guess i didn't have much at the time) during a rehearsal, but i blame the rehearsal space for that one, as it was not the usual one, a huge room 2 stories high and waffled ceiling cafeteria.