As some of you know, I'm very light on tuba inventory these days, but plotting my eventual return to a more proper/suitable tuba. When that happens though, my budget will still be quite low... but I am attempting to upsize from my medium Martin Eb.
In lieu of finding a bigger Martin Eb or a bell-up Martin BBb (either of which would be dreamy with 4 valves... but 3 valve are cool too... but still keep dreaming), I'm keeping my eyes out for one of the many variants of the classic B&S 101 design.
There's one on eBay right now, which is probably very close to my current sweet spot of functionality, ugliness, and (at the moment) price. Unfortunately, it is too far away (Texas), and no shipping (understandable!).
My budget would be under $1,000
, and every bit less than that would be extremely helpful. These are my basic criteria which I realize are asking for the moon and the stars while standing downtown on a cloudy night:1) German-made, not a later Chinese version
2) Must be functional -- all valves work and no air leaks. If slides are stuck, I can deal with that.
* ^ Okay if there are some issues, as long as they are (down the road) reasonably fixable
* ^ For example, noisy rotary valves and dents in the usual places can be resolved. Same with a broken solder joint or two. Really difficult (take-apart) dents, a smashed/cracked bell, paper-thin brass from pervious repairs, missing parts... not desirable
3) Can be ugly, can have dents and stuff, as long as it's presentable as a usable instrument (and not a bell-smashed piece of brass)
4) There are like 20 different stencil names for these, any of them are fine, they're all basically the same.
Okay, that's all. Ready to hear "get the hell outta here, bort!"
Please let me know if you have anything like this sitting around, in your attic, know of one in a local store, etc.
