A VERY old besson

[HaloJX]

Hey guys the place I am studying has a old beat up prototype besson. I was hoping someone could give me some insight on it. Age, worth how to fix the stuck main tuning slide. Just anything. It's only 3 valves so I am not gonna play too much on it but my teacher wants it fixed as it was allegedly a donation to the school about 20000 years ago. So yeah, any info would be really helpful and I hope my pics are ok, if Amy of you want more specific ones just say.

Thanks

Pic are this link btw as the photos on their own were too big
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JJeWEEGSCVWYhgvZ8

[humBell]

Eb, i presume?

Cool!

Per Hornicopia's Besson serial number list:https://www.horn-u-copia.net/serial/Bessonlist.html

It seems from the 1920s? So roughly a century old.

If only it could talk, what tales it could tell!

[HaloJX]

Thanks so much. Do you or anyone else know what it may be worth or how to properly treat it right and fix it. I have worked on my personal tuba before but I don't want to start messing with a 100 year old prototype. It seems that the slides move from 2 places rather than one (on the main tuning slide). It clearly needs a bath and a polish but I don't want to ruin or damage it.

[arpthark]

"Prototype" was just the name of the model. I don't think it was an actual prototype, per se.

I'll give you $5 for it.

[HaloJX]

Was it? I thought at this time Besson hadn't adapted model names yet? And I'm pretty sure I saw a similar thing go for like £600? Idk if your joking if you are I'm sorry

[LeMark]

Don't try to use the word prototype as its contemporary meaning. The word used to mean closer to "the best version"

https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2840786272/v ... 6/mode/1up


Old doesn't mean always mean desirable either. Sorry, but for use as a modern, usable tuba to fix up, this is a poor foundation

[bloke]

"Prototype" was just the name of the model. I don't think it was an actual prototype, per se.

I'll give you $5 for it.

wow...$5 more than for the Kay...??!!

[Rick Denney]

My wife's uncle had an enharmonic-valve compensating version of this tuba for a while about 20 years ago. I think it might actually have been a prototype--some of the tubing was brass and some was copper. It was quite stuff but I was comparing it to a Miraphone 186 and a York Master version of the B&M Symphonic (read--much bigger bores). He moved up to a King 1241, which was a much easier instrument for him to play at that time, and the Besson went to a historical-performance brass band group in the middle of the country that specifically wanted instruments of that age. That guy praised it highly, but then that's the sound he was looking for.

This one is generally the same but without being a compensator, so it might play a bit more openly.

As to tuning, we didn't have any trouble playing it at A-440. That's the main thing I look at with instruments a century old and older. In those days, tubas were low pitch and high pitch, and neither was really right on A-440.

Rick "agreeing with dates in the early 1920's" Denney

[Snake Charmer]

The "Prototype" models were made between ca 1885 and the late 1920s. The meaning of prototype in this case was that all bells an larger bows were formed over steel mandrels, which offered a consistent level of (high!) quality. An early form of mass production and sorting out the difference in work, when more than one person are trying to make identical horns.
These are some of the best instruments from this era, when the valves are ok sometimes better than new ones!

[Tubajug]

The link doesn't work for me. I've tried it on my computer and on my phone. Just FYI.

[tofu]

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[humBell]

Yeah but - mine has got 50 Medals of Honor! So there!

Aw gee. The one i got a couple weeks ago only has 40.

Was fun playing it at tuba christmas though!

(Mind, that's what the seller said, but he also said it was a baritone or euph, and to my delight (and loose expectation) it was an eb, so it would be worth my double checking)

[bloke]

It seems to me that a violin auction, there'd be more of a chance of finding a Stradivarius trombone.