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For sale or trade... because I have zero use for a Sousaphone... not even a REALLY nice Sousaphone. This horn is beautiful, it sounds beautiful, and spent many years unused by the previous owner. It's time to get this tuba out there to be seen and heard!

Sale price is $1750
Or
Trade for 4/4 or larger, BBb, 4 valves. No project horns, nothing weird... open to hearing options. Just something solid and more usable for me than a Sousaphone. By now, most of y'all know what I like!

This is a 1925 Conn 38k, in satin silver w/gold wash bell. 24" bell and bore... I need to measure the bore. The catalog says .719", but I think it's a little bigger than that. Needs a cork for the 3rd valve water key, but otherwise in great playing condition, recent valve alignment, and ready to go.

Nice, thick, warm sound, just a real joy to play -- thick old-school metal construction, so it doesn't break up and get all ratty like newer thin walled horns. Low range pops out, upper range is easy. Nice valves! Not sure what else to say, it's just a good sousaphone, and to me, it feels more like "tuba" than "sousaphone."

I spent a good amount of time cleaning and polishing it, but didn't go crazy to get every last little bit of the valve block. It's difficult to represent that accurately in the photos. Some small dents in the places you'd expect for an old sousaphone. A few spots of silver wear and evidence of a few minor repairs along the way. It's 100 years old, after all.

Neck and bits -- with some help from a friend, I have a set of functioning neck and bits for this. The neck has no brace, and a non-Conn receiver. The bits are both dented, one silver and one lacquer, but they do the job. I think it would play even a little better with a new set of bits without the dents. Brand new, a new neck/bits would cost around $250, and if this was used regularly, I think that would be a good investment. A few people replied to me on the board here with various used offer for these parts... So if you get this from me, perhaps you could still buy something from them.

It's missing one of the bell screws, but I have a thumb screw of the correct thread size as a placeholder now.

Located in Minneapolis.

Here are a few photos ... It's pretty hard to take good pictures of a sousaphone, and hard to get a good photo of the gold washed bell. Much easier to see in real life. I've tried to make everything look as bad as possible in the photos ... Meaning that the tuba looks quite nice in person, and from a few feet away it looks even better. If I were to need a sousaphone, this is just what I would want ... enough wear to suggest that it's a good playing tuba that has always been worthy of frequent use, while also being in pretty good shape overall and especially for being 98 years old. The bell, especially, is in nice shape without a bunch of damage or marks from being rolled, dented, bell folded, etc. As I understand it, the tuba sat unused/unplayed for quite a few years.

I also have a few walk-around videos, and can send a link to those if interested. I have no idea who "Sanford" is.

Sold pending funds

Is this a Sanford and Sons tuba?

Sorry i blinked and missed it.

Sold, shipped, delivered.

I did NOT enjoy packing and shipping a sousaphone, but as usual, I packaged and labeled it carefully and redundantly, and it arrived (via UPS) with no issues. Only took a few days, too, but maybe that's a function of closeness to major cities. Anyway, a sign of relief any time something gets delivered and the deal is done.

NEXT!

bort2.0 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 7:11 am Sold, shipped, delivered.

I did NOT enjoy packing and shipping a sousaphone, but as usual, I packaged and labeled it carefully and redundantly, and it arrived (via UPS) with no issues. Only took a few days, too, but maybe that's a function of closeness to major cities. Anyway, a sign of relief any time something gets delivered and the deal is done.

NEXT!

What packaging did you use to ship it? I'm trying to think what would fit it besides a sousaphone case or a custom made shipping box.

For the body -- I got lucky and had a box at home that was the right size, it was from a large diameter, thin-depth lighting fixture. Size of the box was 36 x 36 x 12, and it had some good solid packaging/reinforcement on the edges and the top. If this didn't work, I'm not sure what I would have done, because it really sucked trying to find a box this size. I'm not much help, sorry.

For the bell -- I went to Uhaul and got an extra large 24 x 24 x 18 box. Sort of a tight fit, but it worked out just fine. Again, I got kind of lucky, because the bell diameter for the 38k is 24" so it fit pretty well. A 26" bell would fit across the diagonal well enough, but I'd be a little concerned about the "height" of the bell" (measured by sitting the bell face down on the ground and to the back of the curved part. You need to have enough clearance on all sides for packing materials as well.

I'll have to post the photos I took of the packing job, but I did think of something clever for reinforcing the corners:
* Buy an extra box to cut up and use as reinforcement on the sides/corners/etc. and to keep the packing materials in place (the whole double box idea)
* For the corners, take a piece of cardboard that's the same height as the box
* Then "roll" the cardboard to make a "tube" that's the same height as the box, and about a 2" diameter
* Slide this in so it adds a tall reinforcement on the corner.
* It'll absorb shock from the corner
* In theory, it'll add strength to the top of the box as well, in case someone puts something on top.

It's the same idea as a drinking straw being weak if you hold it sideways and try to put weight on it
But if you hold it up and down, the straw is a LOT stronger

And of course, put stickers on ALL sides saying:
Fragile
This side up (using the international standard "double arrow pointing up" symbol)
"Do not stack"

Depending on destination, I sometimes put the stickers in both English and Spanish.

Hope this helps! Photos to come

I didn't take pictures of every step from start to finish, but you get the point.

Pack the hell out of it
Use strapping tape to tape the hell out of the corners and seams. I used a full roll+ between the two boxes.
Label all sides
I forgot to put a copy of the shipping label in the box, but should have just in case

Anyone else miss Greyhound right about now?

Nice packing job! I shipped the bell off my Martin Mammoth to its new owner, and carried the body in our car on our road trip to deliver it. For the bell, I bought a few foam pool noodles at the dollar store, cut a slit length wise down the whole thing and slid that over the bell rim as well as around the bell collar. It worked very well. I still did the beach ball inflated inside the bell trick as well. Then plenty of bubble wrap!

Pool noodle is a brilliant idea! I'll have to remember that for next time.

Also, we recently got a new car, an SUV, so transporting a boxed up sousaphone was incredibly easy. I miss the old car, but damn this was easy

Next time I get a neptune, it will definitely fit in the trunk. :-)

Well Done! You did a great job packing that sousaphone. Packing a tuba for shipment is a hell of a lot of work if you want to do it correctly. I have shipped two horns very long distances and have been very lucky that they arrived safely. When my new to me horn arrived here (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada) from Baltimore Brass and the bottom of the box had holes from the prongs of the forklift in it, I certainly gulped. No damage to the interior of the box due to the superb job Baltimore Brass did in packing it and wrapping the entire box before putting it on the pallet that went on the plane. Despite its' foibles, I do miss Greyhound!!

Tubajug wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 4:32 pm I bought a few foam pool noodles at the dollar store, cut a slit length wise down the whole thing and slid that over the bell rim as well as around the bell collar.

Dang, I wish I had seen this before I shipped the one I sold this weekend. I managed to get it in the case covered in bubble wrap, but that would've been much better.