Lovin' that leather bag!

[Tim Jackson]

Just finished reconditioning my vintage black leather Giardinelli gig bag. The bag was older when I bought it and I put some conditioner on it the other day. It still showed some scuffs, scratches, and a few spots where the black was wearing away. I bought some leather color restorer from Amazon and finally got the nerve to try it. Wow... bag looks new now!

I like this bag because it fits my 186 like a glove! As a matter of fact, If you don't slip it in a certain way you will swear it will never fit. Once you figure it out, it's easy - and fits really snugly. I had a reunion blues bag and it was so heavy and bulky.

The Giardinelli bag has no extra room... which is why I like it. Still has nice thick foam and soft lining. I have not seen many of these tuba bags around but I'm sure those that have one love it. Are these still made? I guess they would cost a fortune!

Bag love!

TJ

[the elephant]

I am certain that this is an original RB bag (made by GC) from the 1970s. It looks identical to the one I used to have. He changed the bell-end design, made the zipper go all the way around, and did not have the snap-on pouch. The new design was much heavier. I do not like the recent bags as much as the original design, but they could be difficult to get the horn out of without some practice. If this is one of GC's original bags he would have made "budget" versions for stores to sell with their name embossed on it. He did this later with Tuba Exchange. The bags were cut using identical templates but used thinner padding and Cordura. The Giardanelli bags probably also used a little thinner leather and padding from the full-on RB bags, and the older design used less material, so that would account for how much lighter these were compared with the recent offerings. Bob Giardanelli helped GC to get RB its start on the East Coast.

DO YOU WANT TO SELL IT?????

Cash or my blue Miraphone 186 bag + cash?

[bloke]

I have a brown cordura one like that that's quite old indeed and was paired up with a very old 186 B-flat.
Without "knowing" who made it, I knew who made it.
It bears no brand name.

[the elephant]

And…?

[bloke]

And…?

Just that I recognize my super-vintage Cronkhite-made CORDURA bag in that black LEATHER one that TJ just cleaned up.

The 186 - with which it had been paired - was super old (1960's). I recognized some of my repair work on it, but did not remember doing it. The father asked me to sell it as his son was no longer playing it. I ended up selling it too a school way up in the northern part of the southern portion of Michigan (Traverse City, near Interlochen).

The original owner (prior to the father and his son) completely fiberglassed over the original American made GWW wood case, put heavy duty hardware on it, and it was so heavy that it actually hurt to pick it up. It had all sorts of travel stickers on it which indicated that the owner - prior to that man and his son - was some sort of traveling professional player. I have no idea whether it was used in the circus or what...(??)

Later - after I sold it and shipped it off with that case - the father was very grateful to me selling it for the price I did and the school was very happy with the tuba so everyone was happy. The father told me that there were some items that he had forgotten to give me, so I collected up a Hercules stand, this super vintage Cronkhite-made bag, and also the father apparently owned some glove wholesaling company and he gave me a huge glob and assortment of really expensive-looking work gloves - also telling me that I could have more whenever I wanted them.

Here's a shot of that bag. It doesn't fit on that overhead rack of bags that I rigged up earlier in the master bathroom, but I've tossed it on the floor of my clothes closet and - when I just can't fit a case in the car because so many people on a particular gig are getting repaired instruments returned to them (or some sort of situation like that), I use that bag with my f tuba. I will stop doing that, once I completely refinish it.

Other than having made the mistake of leaving it out of the closet once (cat hair) the thing really looks amazingly good and NOT (as it surely is) SEVERAL decades old...and no interior rips nor tears!









bloke "I SHOULD have taken pictures of that fiberglassed-over wood case - with all the stickers on it!"

EDIT:
OK...REALLY going off on a tangent (but - perhaps - not so much)...
I looked through old emails and FOUND a couple of pictures of that fiberglassed-over case with all the travel stickers...(albeit blurred with stretch wrap)

[Tim Jackson]

Yep, that is definitely made by the same maker. So many identical stitch lines and shaped leather reinforcing pads. Looks to me like these bags last forever! The leather is thinner than I remember the more modern RB bag I had. It still has a durable and protective thickness - just very soft and flexible. Also, much easier to move around because the bag is only an inch or so larger than the dimensions of the tuba.
The leather bag is not for sale at this time as it is paired up with my 186 - which looks like will be with me till God reassigns me.

TJ

[the elephant]

Aw, shucks…

[YorkNumber3.0]

.

[bloke]

That 186 surely had to be a tight fit into this bag - even though I didn't have the brown Cordura bag when I sold the 186, because putting my F tuba in there is a little bit of an effort.

[arpthark]

OK...REALLY going off on a tangent (but - perhaps - not so much)...
I looked through old emails and FOUND a couple of pictures of that fiberglassed-over case with all the travel stickers...(albeit blurred with stretch wrap)

Random question -- was this taken in a Greyhound station?

If I had a nickel for every time I got some extremely funny looks picking up big-ass packages at the Louisville KY Greyhound Station (and later the Worcester MA one when I moved up here), I'd have maybe 25 cents.

[bloke]

Walgreens. I believe I sent it FedEx Ground.

With the case being bulletproof, I decided that it didn't need a carton, and I used bubble wrap strategies - which apparently/reportedly worked to protect the tuba from the hard surfaces just past the thin padding within the case interior. Normally, a hard case is about the worst thing to use to ship an instrument, because it puts hard surfaces too close to the instrument, even though there's a little bit of padding all around the inside.

All of that having been said, when tubas include hard cases, they are almost always shipped together - due to the expense of shipping them apart.

[MikeMason]

Another Cronkhite fan here. I’m on # 3 and 4 currently. 2 tone chocolate and British tan. They are truly a luxury good. They seem like they will last forever. Never cleaned or oiled in 10 and 6 years respectively. I know I should but they just don’t seem like they need it. Retailing for 1200 in leather these days. I got one for my wiseman pt6 copy that I’m using for my Eastman 836. Couldn’t bear to part with it so I tried the Eastman in it, fits fine with 3-4 inches left over in the butt end, which tells me the Eastman in total volume, isn’t that much if any bigger than a pt6p, just shaped differently.

[Three Valves]

Venetian Shoe Cream works miracles!

[Wally]

I have a RB cordura bag for my 186 that I ordered from a guitar shop in the mid '90's. It is the same design as the ones pictured here, with the partial zipper. Inserting/removing the horn does take a bit of gymnastics, but I love the bag! I also have a newer model cordura that came with a used 5/4 Rudy I bought. This past year I ordered one from the new company for my Yamaha EEb. These bags are the best!

[bloke]

My other super-vintage Cronkhite-made bag which actually I believe (??) sports a Reunion Blues label at least on the inside (maybe?) Is actually a top action one. My oddball Besson 3 + 1 comp E flat fits in there when I put on its aftermarket detachable 19 inch upright bell. The tuba was originally sold with a 22-in recording belt which I have, but obviously the instrument doesn't fit in that bag with that bell... duh.

That bag is more worn, and needed some help on the straps, but the rest of it is still just fine. Those things just don't wear out. A thousand years from now, someone will dig one up and wonder what it was used for. Someone else will guess that it was used to haul some sort of fleshy vegetable, plucked chickens, or something like that. Someone paying more attention to the shape might guess that it's a burial shroud for a dwarf with very large feet.

Again, I have four of his bags hanging up overhead in and out of the way part of the master bathroom - just outside my own clothes closet, but the brown one shown above is a fifth odd man out one. I used to have more, but Mrs bloke bullied me into selling them. Some may remember that a few years ago I sold off two or three.

[Rick Denney]

The RB bag I used for my 186 (and now use for my B&S F tuba) is the same design, in Cordura, and is branded The Brasswind. It was probably 15 years old when I traded an Altieri bag for it, and that was in the early 90’s.

Rick “who owns three other Cronkhite bags in addition to that one” Denney

[Mary Ann]

I continue to use the fixed-bell RB (original) bag I got decades ago, in black leather, and it continues to serve perfectly well. I tried cut bell $$$$ bags and found I am not patient enough when taking the bell off to not drop it on something. So this is the bag I use.

[bort2.0]

@Tim Jackson are you keeping the 186 after all? That's great news if you are!

[Mary Ann]

If I were sure I could blow that I'd have bought it myself, if of course I hadn't just bought the 184.

[Tim Jackson]

Yes, Bort, I thought I better do some extended and serious playing on the 186 to make sure I was doing the right thing by selling it. The more I fell back into it the more I realized how good the horn is and how it makes some things I was fussing with easier. I've had that horn since 1974. During the last 20 years, I think my bad habits were making me think I needed something else. I would buy something else and WALA playing problems solved. I really just needed to change the stimulus. Now I realize some cross-training with 2 horns can take care of this.

Funny... if some youngers realized what that horn can do they would've been all over it. It changes colors so well with different mouthpieces. I'm using some shallow cup pieces for my solo rep... but if you put a big funnel on it - it gets big really quickly. It is a great do-all, and one realizes where the term "point & shoot" originated. Solo stuff with an "F" mouthpiece - soooo brassy, like a big french horn.