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After driving all over creation yesterday (well, all over Massachusetts, which has enough traffic for the rest of creation), I picked up these two silver, interwar-era, MTS-before-the-valvesets, recording bell, front-action, three-valve B-flats.

First is a ~1933 pre-1240 model King with a large bore of approx. .750". It has a 21.5" recording bell, pristine valves, and a botched receiver/brace repair. Despite that, it's a great player. I eventually unwrapped the electrical tape on the first valve circuit, fearing a hole, but I think it was just put there for comfort or protection, like a leather wrap. Valves show virtually no plating wear and all tuning slides move, but there is a fair bit of lime buildup, and I still need to get the bottom caps off.

Note that unlike a 1240, which is it very similar to otherwise, it has the tuning slide before the valveset. The angle of the recording bell is also a bit more forward-facing by a few degrees.

(I actually have a mid-1960s King 1240 here as well, and I'll make another post about the differences.)






(^^ I love this brace, for some reason.)


(^^ solder glob city, plus a broken brace)







Next up is a 1926 Buescher with a single MTS before the valves and a 19" recording bell. This thing is in great shape! A few dings and dents, and someone got creative with reattaching the lyre holder, but all slides work, including the goofy extra loop in the 3rd valve tubing that has a tiny slide in it. The valves on this one aren't as good, with a little bit more wear, but slides all still have pretty good pop. I was interested in how LONG this recording bell is. It's also one of the smallest recording bells I've seen, but I know Buescher made smaller ones. Reminds me of a phonograph bell or something. It's a good player. The bell needs a bit of straightening out, but the body is in great shape with no busted braces or anything.








(^^ nice repair to the lyre holder)

Here they are side-by-side:





Cool tubas!

Nice haul

A terrific score all the way around! Enjoy!!

At least, they were generous with the solder.

Dents Be Gone! wrote: ↑Sat Sep 02, 2023 4:29 pm I always thought those Buescher bottom bows were interesting. I would have liked to seen them made.

Buescher had a lot of interesting design cues (and "interesting" design cues) that I don't think were emulated elsewhere. I've always been sort of fascinated by them.

Cool stuff! That King looks sweet.

I remember reading (possibly from bloke) that bottom bows were like that because they were shared with the sousaphones.

According to catalogs from the 1930s, that is just the design of the King 1240 from that time, approx. pre-1940. 1940 was around when they redesigned it with the MTS after the valves and changed some other stuff, including the smaller bore. I'm guessing that's also about when they stopped making the Monster BBbs, which used .750" tubing, so they consolidated everything to .687" or whatever the ubiquitous King size is.

I have a 1933-1934 1240 that looks exactly the same, except the normal .689 bore. I think the .750 was an optional thing.

As I've said before, I have one of those four valve top action Buescher recording bases with all four valves rebuilt, as well as a complete front action Buescher four valve section of the same bore size -which is .726", I'm thinking.

I can just imagine myself in some old black and white Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode, whereby I've stopped time to get all of the projects and all of the distressed not-yet-playable professional instruments stored away all fixed up and put in top condition... and getting all carried away and never restarting time - yet aging and eventually getting sick and dying with time still stopped.

I was able to clear out most of the mess with all that solder on the King. I found some surprises. It was a mixture of solder and some sort of epoxy or caulk, which burned and stank. The water key nipple in the MTS was also held on by caulk or something. I was able to scrape most of it off.

Anyhow, here's what it looks like now. The non-mouthpiece end of the receiver is flared out and needs to be repaired or replaced. I can see why former owner Joe Q. Garage decided to use so much solder on it.





Here is a pile of dirt that came out of this tuba when I turned it upside down:



Yummy!

What a neat and unusual horn.

I am going to do my best to fix the receiver so it fits snugly on the mouthpipe, but I definitely need a new bell-to-receiver brace for this thing.

Also, one bottom valve cap is stubborn. Currently soaking in Kroil. I tried mallet tapping, turning clockwise before unscrewing counterclockwise (worked with another cap), and (eek) cloth-wrapped pliers. We'll see if the Kroil penetrates and un-seizes this at all.

I have a King bell to receiver brace. Its not silver, but you could send it to Andersons.