Tuba Tuesday: Moennig BBb Tuba

[bisontuba]

Happy Tuba Tuesday!

In today’s edition, from the Museum, we feature an instrument that might be one of the oldest BBb tubas made in the U.S.: our H. W. Moennig four rotary valve BBb tuba from 1875. The key levers are on the sides of the valves. This is typically seen on civil-war period instruments, like the Foote OTS saxhorn in the collection.  This type of construction ceased circa 1880, to be replaced by the modern, rotary valve spatulas, an early version of which can be seen on the Boston Musical Instruments tuba in the collection.

https://simonettitubacollection.com/ins ... -4-rotary/

[Three Valves]

Key levers, now I've seen everything!!

[bort2.0]

"This tuba is hard to play"

"Argh, quit yer Moenning!"

[humBell]

Wicked cool!

Previously, my wisdom on the antiquity of American BBb instruments came from this page:

https://www.robbstewart.com/tubas-early-bbb

I am always glad to be learning new... er old things!