Baltimore brass closing

[bloke]

[Tim Jackson]

I wish everything could stay the same! I have all my folks I love doing business with - people I trust, people I don't have to check up on to see if the transaction is sound. I bought and sold several horns with BB.

On the other hand, I celebrate with Dave. As a small business owner, there comes a point where even with things we love doing it's just time to refocus and make time for other things. I am letting many things go that at one point served my business well. Even when it's not about money and totally something we love doing, after 30-40 years it can become "been there, done that" let's move on to other things of interest.

I think most folks would be surprised what the net profit on a tuba sale is after all "costs of doing business" is taken out. I just got my insurance bill for one of my rental houses. It now takes 3 months of rent to pay the insurance. Now add tax and upkeep. One major repair added to the mix will mean no profit for a year or two. Holding a large building with inventory must be staggering for BB and the like.

BB and Dave Fedderly's service was a treasure for all of us. We still have great people in our tuba community to help buy, sell, and fix. Use them, enjoy and promote them, as their service will one day come to an end as well.

TJ

[bort2.0]

At some point, there needs to be a discussion about passing the torch.

Dave is retiring/selling.
Matt Walters deserves an awesome retirement when he's good and ready.
Lee Stofer isn't getting any younger
Dan Oberloh I have no idea how old he is
Steve Ferguson seems to be in a good position for the time being...
I'm forgetting others...

But just saying, there's already few people running businesses that serve us so we'll. And when people want to retire, sell, stop... We'd better be ready to fill the void.

I wish I had the capital and know-how (business or tuba-wise) to do it myself.

[Tuba1153]

Oh no! This stinks. I have bought several horns from Dave over the years. It was a good run, Dave!

[jtuba]

Matt Walters deserves an awesome retirement when he's good and ready.

Oh, he's long been ready....

[York-aholic]

Another thing to think about: in the past, the way to seek a tuba was by word of mouth, through a listing in the back of the TUBA journal or one of the “tuba” shops.

Things have changed. With eBay, FB, and forums like this, it is quite easy to peruse tubas for sale from virtually all over the world. This has certainly changed things for the shops. They certainly retain their advantage of experience, reliability, and solid reputation, but…

The world (and it’s marketplace) is changing. I’ll leave you with this little gem:

All progress involves change. However, not all change involves progress.

Cheers.

[jtm]

Well crap, now I feel like I need to buy something from them. I bought my first tuba from them. Should maybe buy another?

Someone already did me/them a solid and bought the Scherzer. What else has been there forever...?

As owner of the Scherzer's sibling, I wonder where it went? For that matter, I wonder where it came from, too?

[Heavy_Metal]

Well crap, now I feel like I need to buy something from them. I bought my first tuba from them. Should maybe buy another?

Someone already did me/them a solid and bought the Scherzer. What else has been there forever...?

They have an Alexander 163CC..............

[tofu]

Another thing to think about: in the past, the way to seek a tuba was by word of mouth, through a listing in the back of the TUBA journal or one of the “tuba” shops.

Things have changed. With eBay, FB, and forums like this, it is quite easy to peruse tubas for sale from virtually all over the world. This has certainly changed things for the shops. They certainly retain their advantage of experience, reliability, and solid reputation, but…

The world (and it’s marketplace) is changing. I’ll leave you with this little gem:

All progress involves change. However, not all change involves progress.

Cheers.

So true.

when I was a kid in the sixties it was basically through a teacher or a random once in awhile ad in the local paper or if you were lucky a garage sale as well as the local music store that would quote you full retail & no discount on a Conn or King typically. They might have one student type tuba that had been sitting there for eternity gathering dust. It was a lousy system. When the Journal came around in the 1970's there wold be a couple ads but they would be months old by the time they showed up in your mail box and the horns were long sold.

The 1980's were kind of a sweet spot. Here in Chicagoland you had Custom Music not to far away just around the lake in Michigan, Woodwind Brasswind in South Bend - they had about 50 new tubas in a basement room - I'd spend hours trying horns and mouthpieces there. There was a really nice larger shop in Itasca Illinois - i think it was called Lyons Music - a lot of pros would go there. My older brother was a superb trombone player and my mother once had taken him there to pick up a Conn 88H around 1968. She had left my 2 year old very cute little sister in the front of the place in her baby buggy. When she turned around she found an old man had lifted her baby up in front of him and was singing her a lullaby. Good old mom first whacked him in the back with her purse & then asked what the heck was he thinking -only to find out she had just slugged Burl Ives. Mom never lived that story down.

Locally we had a great repair place in the Brass Bow in the NW Chicago suburb (Arlington Heights) - you could ride the commuter train there from Chicago (which had a stop at the Arlington Park Race track (future home of the Chicago Bears) - so you could do a double - get your horn fixed and bet on the ponies. Wayne Tanabe was the owner - I think they were a Yammie Dealer. You had Schilke in downtown Chicago as well Lyon Healy and Carl Fischer for sheet music - so you could hit these three easily in an afternoon and even make a stop at Rose Records on Wabash - which was a phenomenal record store - that place had every thing on vinyl you could think of and then some.

Today - the mystery of pricing is gone and prices are much more transparent - so it's easier to know if it's a good price. Being able to know the variety of tubas out there is better than ever. But actually playing & comparing horns has pretty much evaporated. Buying online is a bit of Russian Roulette - you don't know if it's a player or a dud until it arrives - then there is the whole transit challenge of getting it delivered unmolested - and pre delivery prep/service for delivery - is fast disappearing - so now you're on your own to fix any issues yourself or find a competent person/shop to do so even before you've played a note on it.

[groovlow]

Have you ever slowed the pace of your reading... when realizing you don’t want the novel to end?

Thanks to Dave and Baltimore Brass

J

[York-aholic]

So true.

when I was a kid in the sixties it was basically through a ...

Thank you. I enjoyed reading that!

[bloke]

[lots of interesting stuff]

In my town (probably - including reachable suburbs - though not much of a freeway system, and mostly two-lane roads to the suburbs) when I was in junior high, the "greater" (including suburbs) population was probably around 700,000. There were three or four music stores that sold band instruments, but two that were considered the primary ones. (fwiw, the current north Mississippi border towns were not considered to be "suburbs" at that time, because it took the better part of an hour - if not longer - to get to any of them.)

The only tuba that I can recall being on display in any of those local music stores (during that era) was a (probably, like Rick Denney's...??) gold fiberglass one (fiberglass being the "in" thing - just as convertible was "in" a few short years later).

I was (reluctantly, as if tracking down stuff for a science project that I was resenting having to do) looking through their limited selection of (crappy) tuba solo music, and didn't even ask if I could play that tuba...not that I was afraid to ask. (Admittedly,) I wasn't interested in playing it.

I may (??) have found out about rotary-valved tubas around the 10th grade. Again, my buddy (in the 11th grade) was always judged as first in the region and first in the state (with one of the school's 36K fiberglass sousaphones), but he told me about a "Mirafone" tuba that belonged to the second chair (region/state) guy. I probably shrugged my shoulders.

Later, I found out that Memphis State University (later, pretentiously renamed "University of Memphis" - per that widespread trend) had ordered a Mirafone, a RECORDING BELL version was shipped to them in error, and they sold it to that young man's parents (about whom my friend spoke).

Both that person and my friend ended up playing in military bands. As I've mentioned quite a few times, my friend ended up in Pershing's Own (as his plan had been to get into SOME/ANY military band, in order to avoid being killed in Vietnam). My friend's very first private "tuba lesson" was after his audition, and during his weeks at the military bands' (Navy-run?) School of Music.

Possibly that same year (my 10th grade year, when my 11th grade buddy was - as always - first in the state with his 36K), my band director brought back one of those narrow multi-page Meinl-Weston color brochures (after taking my buddy and a flute player to All-State in Nashville) with a picture of Bill Bell (who was-and-looked-to-be at death's doorstep) with the new Meinl-Weston "William Bell Model". As others will recall, the first version featured a detachable upright bell, a narrow main slide bow, and a gimmicky rig - whereby slides could be switched around so that the 5th valve could "convert" that C instrument (who in the HECK would want a C tuba...and FOR WHAT...!?!?) to a B-flat instrument (rather than offering the "extended range" function that it offers (when played as a C instrument). I looked at those pictures and gibberish, and had no idea what the hell any of that was about. Soon after (at a jazz band contest at Memphis State - primarily/overwhelmingly, I was a guitar/bass player) I walked past the University's instrument storage room, and saw a couple of Mirafone's and Meinl-Weston's in their storage cages...so I saw some rotary tubas "in-person". At All-State (in the 12th grade - when it was my "turn" to be the kid from my school who was 1st chair in the All-State band - as our school had held down that chair for quite a few years, and even after I matriculated) the 2nd chair guy had a piston Marzan, and was constantly "pumping" one of the slides. Lower in the section, someone had a Mirafone. Arnald Gabriel had given us some challenging music to play, I still wasn't particularly interested in "tubas", and so I didn't ask either one of them about their tubas - nor if I could play them. I believe one of the vendors brought along a (imported by Selmer, USA) "Meister Gerhard Schneider" rotary B-flat tuba (old handmade Communist B&S). I didn't ask to pick it up and play it, either.

I'm thinking that Mr. Fedderly's business may have still been a basement operation when I first became aware of it, but it quickly grew to what it is today. He eventually offered all sorts of brass and woodwinds but (walking into the place, or looking a pictures of the store's interior) it was obvious where the owner's musical "love interests" were. Even the first time I walked into that place (a couple of decades ago), there were things for sale that I'd never seen before...but I was considerably more interested in them than I had been a couple of decades prior to that. Certainly, his displays were tremendously popular at the Army Conference - year-after-year. I understand the concept of "retirement", but I hope he'll continue to go around to various universities/conferences and do his masterclasses.

The business is changing. WWBW is no longer either an added-on-to house nor a (as it eventually became) palace. I have no regrets that I've limited my store's exposure to carrying "lines" as well as hiring employees/managers and expanding (as - at a certain point - I had to make a decision to either become five times as large or half as large...and - with the out-of-control-crime/confiscatory-taxes/litigious-society/manufacturers-exercising-too-much-control-over-dealers things escalating - Mrs. bloke and I choose the latter.

bloke "who came to tubas very slowly (UNTIL suddenly being hired - as a kid - to play a few orchestra and recording gigs, and being paid some significant dough) at which point the guitar-tuba conversion was quite abrupt and quite motivated"

[Mary Ann]

Lots of interesting stuff, he said.

If I thought I could blow that Bell CC I'd be tempted. I've never bought a tuba from there but have looked a lot. The only "store" I actually bought a tuba from was Dillon, and that was just because I waffled on it when it was first offered to me by the owner. Others have all been from individuals.

And I see they have a Symphonie -- surely someone would be interested in that?

[Heavy_Metal]

I called BB today. They said at that moment there are "interested parties" that *may* buy the business- but that's all they know, and unless and until someone steps in, the plan is to close on October 31. Here's hoping...........

[kingrob76]

BBC has a very well equipped repair shop and many school contracts for instrument repair. I could see where that alone could make for a turnkey business for someone.

[bort2.0]

BBC has a very well equipped repair shop and many school contracts for instrument repair. I could see where that alone could make for a turnkey business for someone.

Guessing -- that's what's kept them afloat all these years.

Again, I've been told:
There's no money in selling new tubas.
There's no money in selling used tubas.

I've always interpreted it as "there's some money to be made in repairs."

Which has GOT to be true if @bloke is spending HIS time doing repairs.

[bloke]

I (in my view) have been wildly increasing my repair pricing, but am still told by some that they are using my (for - in my opinion - the wrong reason) "because of my prices". ...
...and (when I go to the store to buy a generic/white aluminum gutter downspout and two rattlecans of paint - and am charged DOUBLE last year's prices - $32 total, rather than $16 total) I see that my prices (still) have not been increased enough...PARTICULARLY after I get my repair parts bills from Yamaha and KHS ( wow!)

Of course, the Old Guy's puppeteers are all telling us (now are they claiming more than...??) 8% inflation (not 50% or 75% on average, as I'm seeing), but whatever.

(I'm really NOT in the "repair" business. I'm in the "come up with ways to please Mrs. bloke" business...AS WELL AS the "play some gigs to retain my sanity, but get paid to play them, for pity's sake" business. One business in which I am NOT is a "parts jobber". If I'm helping someone out with parts, it's because they have done me some really nice favor, or because I noticed - impressing me - that they had done someone ELSE a really nice favor.)

I really don't have any "hobbies", unless "trying to keep my house from falling in on itself, and trying to keep the woods back a few hundred feet from the house and out of the pastures" are "hobbies".

If my tyrant rulers would stop stealing my money and would also stop printing more money, I probably wouldn't really need to offer myself out for hire...
...but they won't stop - so I - being a mere serf, in this particular feudal system - can't stop.

I've never had a "full-time" job, and the only time I was on track to get one (a university teaching job), I soon realized what I mistake that would be, and walked away.

[Three Valves]

I'm tired of these lies!!

[sweaty]

I thought Baltimore Brass was the model of what any retail shop should be - knowledgeable staff, competitive pricing, great service, and integrity. Plus, I'm grateful to Dave for being a teacher to one of my sons. For three years, he gave my son terrific guidance in music, professionalism, and life.

[Three Valves]

BBC has a very well equipped repair shop and many school contracts for instrument repair. I could see where that alone could make for a turnkey business for someone.

For a key employee takeover. Even if they had to get a smaller place.

Not all workers are cut out to be owners, however.