vintage 184 C bell

[bloke]

This is a very nice-looking bell and is stripped.
I looked it over and found one 1/4"-long crack in it.
I'm willing to fix that crack or (if someone would prefer that I not mess with it) leave it be.
I'd like to turn this bell into some cash.
OK...specific price needed...alright: $300 (or - LOL - bidding war).
If you would like to buy it - and THE PRICE IS TOO DAMN HIGH - just pretend that it's forty friggin' years ago, and I'm asking $100.
I'm willing to box it up without charging more, but the buyer will need to pay shipping.
I'll put it in the smallest carton I can manage to put it in, but also large enough to offer a reasonably good chance of it arriving in good condition.
THE POINT BEING: Shipping is now stupid expensive, but stupid-expensive shipping (even though no guarantees) is probably more desirable than shipping damage.

I haven't taken any pictures, but I suppose I could.
Here is a reasonable facsimile:

IMAGINE IF YOU WILL, A 14" VINTAGE MODEL 184 C TUBA BELL WITH NO DENTS - YET! - NO LACQUER:

reasonable.jpg (34.99 KiB) Viewed 481 times

[Casca Grossa]

PM and email sent

[bloke]

PM and email sent

OK...
I pulled this bell down from storage and realized that I CONFUSED this bell crack with the one in the customer Holton 345 bell (that I repaired).
The Holton crack was only about 1/4" long, but this one (sorry for the original misrepresentation !!!) was about an inch long.

You expressed a desire (if you decide to purchase it) for this crack to be repaired - so I went ahead and fixed it. As most any bell crack repair will be noticeable, I went for (hopefully) "strong" rather than "a tiny line of silver material". (About the only way to hide cracks (and only with no-kranz bells) is to copper plate the crap out of them, sand-and-buff the crap out of them, and (building up crack-repaired areas with copper) doing this over-and-over, and (finally) hiding the copper with silver plating...and that's just not what this particular bell is "all about".

If you're not longer interested (due to the now-repaired crack being longer than wrongly/originally stated) I would completely understand, but I believe I'm going to hold on to this price - for a while, since the bell is dent-free, round, smooth (except for the crack flaw), and ready to install on an instrument.

Just to be absolutely clear, I'm not charging for the repair, and never intended on charging to repair it...but was offering to include doing it.
I certainly would not consider charging for repairing it, since the crack was longer than originally represented.

That having been said, if there's a desire to receive it buffed, I'd probably appreciate an additional $50 to do that...
(hoping that - if you are still interested - you aren't particularly interested in me buffing it.)

Finally, I now see that the interior close-up of the repaired crack is somewhat out-of-focus, but the exterior picture of it is in focus, so...

[bort2.0]

I have no need at all for this, but have to resist the urge to buy it "just because."

[Casca Grossa]

Email sent. Thanks for the update Joe.

[Matt Good]

I remember that Alan Baer replaced a bell on a B&S PT-10 with a 184 bell. It took out much of the diffuseness in the lower register that is sometimes an issue with those tubas.

FWIW, I do like the B&S PT-10 F tubas!

[bloke]

Being extremely biased, I always view the Symphonie Modell as the equivalent of the Mark VII” of all of the B&S F tubas (always bigger, none better) that would follow.

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This bell will be packed up and shipped tomorrow.
I had some small brass instrument Styrofoam cone shapes which were handy for suspending this bell in a carton, and I had to glue one into the end of the carton that I’m using; it has to dry really well before I can finish the packing job.

[bort2.0]

Oh thank goodness someone else bought it!

[Casca Grossa]

The bell arrived today. It looks great and it was very nicely packed. Thanks so much @bloke.

[bloke]

If you were happy, I’m happy.
I have a whole bunch of those JP styrofoam bell cones (that came out of the cases, when a school system ordered a zillion dollars worth of JP instruments from us).