PT1/B&S 3103/VMI 103/Accent 952

[Three Valves]

It has ruff spots but the lacquer is probably 80+%.

From 10ft....

[bort2.0]

Great looking tuba!

Who's the fella in the photograph?

[Three Valves]

Great looking tuba!

Who's the fella in the photograph?

Thanks.

My Father in law. We live in his house. (And before that, his fathers house)

He commanded a destroyer off the coast of Korea during the war there.

Shelled the coast and picked up a few pilots out of the water.

Also Pacific theatre in WWII (Guadalcanal)

After that career he sold sonar equipment to the Navy.

And for that, your daughter and son in law will visit you twice yearly at Arlington Cemetery.

[bort2.0]

^ That's very cool, thanks for sharing all of that. My wife's parents have a similar-looking Navy serviceman photo in their house of her grandfather. I always appreciate seeing things like that on display.

[Three Valves]

Practice…

This is the best 2k I ever spent!!

[MikeMason]

I seriously doubt that the early Accent instruments (specifically: the ones that were German made, as someone made in Taiwan and other places) were partially made in mainland China. They are just too absolutely parts-interchangeable and too absolutely “just the same“ as the same models labeled “B&S”.

Gerhard Meinl was trying to find all kinds of work for that factory when - after reunification- he was assigned it by the German government. He made deals with Brooks Mays to build their earlier “F. Schmidt” instruments, deals with Accent, et al.

fwiw, I recently picked up an “F. Schmidt” (Brooks Mays sold) instrument for myself, and there’s just nothing Chinese – certainly nothing “two decades ago Chinese“ – about it.

Buffet - I’m thinking - is really the B&S owner that has contracted more Chinese factories to build some of their economy-line instruments, such as “Besson International”, walking away from the Schreiber factory (towards China) for the entry-level clarinets, and etc. My understanding is that they are using Wisemann, among others.

If I’m wrong, someone - perhaps Mr. Meinl himself - can correct me.

================
sidebar:
Believe I believe quite a few of us have noticed that the Wisemann 900 has just about disappeared, since their believed-to-be connection with Buffet. Though the build quality wasn’t quite up to the build quality of a PT6P, I found it interesting that most of them played better (for me) than most of the German-made “real“ ones. Though the model 900 mouthpipes were thin, yellow brass, and tended to rot, I suspect that the playing characteristics (that I like better) Might be due to the fact that the 900 mouthpipe tubes were a little bit smaller on the small end – a characteristic which seems to help quite a few models of tubas.

I'm still waiting for Mike Mason to eat at least a crow wing; didn't he unload his JB 6 valve F on you? I think I owned that exact horn and he 'disagreed ' with my appraisal...

Hello Bob! Hope you are well. Yep, that Jb 6v f was a dog. Joe had some use for it and I took what he offered. Lesson somewhat learned. That little mw182, I really thought with a tuning slide stick, I could’ve used it just fine. Liked the sound and you could really get around on it. We all value different characteristics of a horn to different degrees. Yes, I play for money with good players and bad intonation isn’t an option. But there’s more than one way to do that. My teacher, James Jenkins, grew up on a marzan piston b flat. As you know, it has up facing main tuning slide. He has ever since had a main tuning slide stick on his other horns.there are many great players who never touch a slide. It’s great to have so many options.

[bloke]

I'm still picking parts off of that thing...to fix jimbo-junk.

...but I saved your butt from buying a very out-of-tune German-made F tuba from me, a year or two or three later...

(I refused to sell it to you because - [1] it was a disaster, AND [2] I absolutely needed some parts off it it - for a FAR-FAR better instrument.)

[MikeMason]

In the voice of Willie Nelson “ to all the horns I’ve loved before, traveled in an out my door’’!