1904 York Eb

[arpthark]

Holton?



edit: 1904 York!

edit 2: this thread is now devoted to discussing this tuba

[2nd tenor]

It looks very similar to a Hawkes and Son Tuba recently listed on UK eBay : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hawkes-amp-S ... 7675.l2557

It’s not quite identical but I suspect it could well have been UK built by Hawkes or some UK competitor.

To me it looks like it was built in high pitch and the main tuning slide later extended to play at A440

[arpthark]

'Tis a York. And 'tis mine now. Nice player!

[matt g]

Congratulations!

Should have some solid false tones.

[bort2.0]

I think it's a York.

[arpthark]

Low pitch, about A=435, but slides/valves work very well with lots of plating left on the pistons. Sweet sound. Cool tuba!

[bloke]

Low pitch, about A=435, but slides/valves work very well with lots of plating left on the pistons. Sweet sound. Cool tuba!

Plenty of crap to cut off that main slide to get to A+440 or A=443.

Someone could shorten it for you WITHOUT the tuba being there with it...as long as they temporarily soldered two or three cross-braces across the slide tubes first.

[arpthark]

@bloke, are ya soliciting mail-order work?

Serial number indicates 1904. Aside from an unfortunate small break in the bell rim and about a 1/2" tear therefrom, it's remarkably well-preserved. It seems it was stored with oiled slides and valves; to my absolute amazement, everything moves.

[arpthark]

I think it's a York.

Source?

[bort2.0]

I think it's a York.

Source?

[bloke]

@bloke, are ya soliciting mail-order work?

...if you put off thinking about getting it fixed for a coupla months.

If it's obviously not lined up particularly well, don't consider this.
(duh) You could - in that case - take the complete tuba to someone to have the slide BOTH aligned AND shortened.

[arpthark]

@bloke, are ya soliciting mail-order work?

...if you put off thinking about getting it fixed for a coupla months.

If it's obviously not lined up particularly well, don't consider this.
(duh) You could - in that case - take the complete tuba to someone to have the slide BOTH aligned AND shortened.

Alignment is pretty good, and I don't foresee a hasty need to get it up to pitch, so maybe I'll take advantage of that after fixin' season has settled down.

(btw: I have your scans, just need to get everything put together in an email.)

[2nd tenor]

'Tis a York. And 'tis mine now. Nice player!

Congratulations, nice to have the mystery solved too. Personally, I really love such compact and simple three valve Eb’s, they can really sound sweet (euphonium like) and there’s also a lot of bass line in them. False tones, never been able to get them myself on any instrument but if your York has good false tones then that will be a very nice little bonus.

I wonder how much should be taken off of the main tuning slide?

[windshieldbug]

15" bell?

[bloke]

@bloke, are ya soliciting mail-order work?

...if you put off thinking about getting it fixed for a coupla months.

If it's obviously not lined up particularly well, don't consider this.
(duh) You could - in that case - take the complete tuba to someone to have the slide BOTH aligned AND shortened.

Alignment is pretty good, and I don't foresee a hasty need to get it up to pitch, so maybe I'll take advantage of that after fixin' season has settled down.

(btw: I have your scans, just need to get everything put together in an email.)

I really appreciate that.
I'm not playing the piece until March, but it's tough, fitting my part into the texture might (??) prove to be tough, and I just want to dig in, know/master the piece, and revisit it - now-and-then - UNTIL March, so it isn't a worry that "looms".

[arpthark]

15" bell?

I don't think so. I didn't measure, but it seems closer to 19-20" to me.

Here it is next to a Buescher Monster Eb (Buescher on the left, York on the right):



Engraving:



Low pitch main tuning slide (the tag says "Eb TUBA"):

[arpthark]

I had an interesting day yesterday. I had double booked myself to pick this thing up over one of my lesson kids. Didn't want to cancel on the paying student, so I squeezed in this pickup -- about an hour away from me up near Hartford -- between our tuba ensemble gig at 4:30 and band rehearsal at 7. I was playing euph in the tuba ensemble, so when I went to test this instrument out, I only had a euph mouthpiece to play, so I played some really squirrelly high notes at first. The seller: "Sounds great!"

The slides were all stiff but coated in something that smelled like ancient motor oil or 3-in-1 so they did move, begrudgingly. Not any frozen lime crud. The valves were likewise sluggish but got moving quick with a bit of oil. I would say the plating on the valves is at about 90-95% intact. The valves are a very interesting shade of oddly bright silver. I wonder if they are a nickel alloy.

Since I had the dang thing, I figured I might as well play it in rehearsal, so I brought it out for our warmup Bach chorales and at the end of the rehearsal on Stars & Stripes, playing the upper part. Immediately it became clear that it had a very nice sound, and that it was about 40c. flat across the board, so I was doing some epic lipping. But the low range is nice and round, and the high range fairly buoyant and nimble. Great sound. Great false tones too, as @matt g predicted. It has the small/bass trombone shank receiver, so I grabbed my Sellmansberger Imperial mouthpiece with a cup extender and the small British shank and it fit pretty well.

This instrument seems like a true survivor, at 119 years old, and still has the original water key, valve buttons/pearls, and lyre screw. The only thing holding it back from being really fantastic is a cracked bell rim with a 1/2" tear extending into the bell. I don't know how repairable that is.

[bloke]

Others probably have developed better strategies for patching busted bell rims, but I've taken a piece of 1/4 o.d. thinwall brass or nickel tubing, bent it to match the curvature of the bell, cut it lengthwise, pried it apart, installed it over the crack, squeezed it back together and lead (or - if brave - brazed it in place. If it ends up slightly rippled, it can be filed/sanded/buffed...but not too thin, as - LOL - it will just end up cracking right over the rim's crack.

Prior to that (since there is a crack into the bell flare as well) I might silver braze that crack...Otherwise, someone might just lead solder a patch over the crack.

admission:
I have a huge box of Bach (Olds tooling) straight/never-bent mellophone mouthpipe tubes.
Rather than buying tubing, I might bend and cut a patch out of the small end of one of those...and (in order to counter the subtle expansion of the bore) just cut a little bit more metal out of the slot at the end with the slightly larger bore.

[arpthark]

Well, how about I mail you the bell along with the tuning slide?

[bloke]

LOL...

Take it to Matt, or...