![Image](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/LCUAAOSwrgZl3bva/s-l1600.jpg)
Same as my Heinel/Schuster but with 3 valves instead of 4. Never thought I'd see another one like it:
viewtopic.php?p=82351#p82351
![Image](https://i.imgur.com/LlQBoB8h.jpg)
Hmm, what are you seeing that's different? The only real difference between mine and the eBay one that I am seeing is that mine has a keel and ball, while the one on offer just has a keel. (unfortunately, despite it being a very small tuba and me being a short guy, due to the ball/keel and high mouthpipe placement, it still hits me about squarely in the nose when I put it on a chair.) Oh, and I guess the thumb ring and mouthpipe angle are both a bit different. edit: Braces are also different, my bad.Rick Denney wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 9:28 am The one on offer doesn't look as old as the one you linked, which appears to me to be at least a hundred years old, and likely even older to before WWI. But I could be totally misreading the clues.
Schüster is one of those mid-size manufacturers that was big enough to have a real factory (steam-powered, apparently) but not nearly as big as, say, Böland & Fuchs. They were in operation from the late 1800's to the 1940's when they were swallowed up by socialist consolidation and state central management.
This page shows a pic of the factory, and within it there are pictures inside the workshop from around the turn of the last century.
https://www.brasstacks.de/manufakturen.html
As usual, BerlinerTuba has a nice writeup about a frankentuba in F that was originally made by Schüster, with clues about the history.
Rick "not sure this one would be worth the trouble to restore" Denney