Jack Richardson's last personal tuba!

[Dave Detwiler]

Hi all - I made a trip out to Dillon Music yesterday to have Steve and Matt check out an old Rudolf Sander tuba that belonged to Jack Richardson, of Sousa Band fame. Included with the tuba, which was graciously given to me by Jack's great nephew, is his personal mouthpiece, stamped, "J. R."!

Here's the link to my blog post on the visit: https://tubapastor.blogspot.com/2024/01 ... -tuba.html

Enjoy!
Dave

Jack Richardson's Sander BBb tuba.jpg (102.55 KiB) Viewed 1064 times

[York-aholic]

Wow, that’s pretty damn cool!

[Grumpikins]

Very cool.

Was he a really tall guy?

By the picture, it looks like a tall tuba and the lead pipe comes straight over rather than dipping down like most of that type. Was it modified for him?

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[bisontuba]

Outstanding!

[prairieboy1]

What a tremendous find! Please keep posting about this!

[edfirth]

Thanks again Dave, great post. Didn't i read in one of your posts that Jack Richardson was 6'6? Best, Ed

[Dave Detwiler]

Very cool.

Was he a really tall guy?

By the picture, it looks like a tall tuba and the lead pipe comes straight over rather than dipping down like most of that type. Was it modified for him?

Sent from my SM-S367VL using Tapatalk

I don't know the answer to your second question, but as to your first, Richardson was reportedly 6 feet 6 inches tall - and that squares with every photo we see of him, standing well above every other tuba player!

Interestingly, however, Richardson replaced Herman Conrad on the one Sousaphone in Sousa's Band, and Conrad was also reportedly 6 feet 6 inches tall. It does make you wonder if Sousa was looking for a new giant to play the Sousaphone when Conrad left the band in 1903!

[gnimoyw]

Very cool, hope you get it polished up with some after pics too!

[matt g]

Will Dillon Music or someone else be willing to measure and/or copy the mouthpiece? It’s always interesting to get these historical mouthpieces faithfully copied if only for posterity but there’s also a chance it could be a good fit for some people.

[Dave Detwiler]

Will Dillon Music or someone else be willing to measure and/or copy the mouthpiece? It’s always interesting to get these historical mouthpieces faithfully copied if only for posterity but there’s also a chance it could be a good fit for some people.

The mouthpiece, from what I can tell, is basically a Holton 51 BBb tuba mouthpiece (using the 1924 Holton catalog as a reference, as well as photos of vintage mouthpieces), with a rim width of 3/16" (which is slightly narrower than the 51 rim, which is 1/4"), a mouthpiece opening of 1 and 5/16", and a cup depth of approx. 1 and 7/16" (as that was harder for me to measure!).

The tuba itself is 37 inches tall, with a bell diameter of 14 inches, and a weight of 13 pounds. Oh, and the bore, which Matt had measured for me, is .610 inches, and there are extenders in a couple of the slides, shifting the horn from high pitch to low pitch.