arpthark wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:09 am
Is there a "golden era" for 20Ks?
I played on one from the 90s when I was in high school band in the 00s. I thought it was fine... didn't know much else.
ONE of them - that I might end up selling (if this becomes a "thing"...??) was made in Texas. I looked it over before I bought it (quite a few years ago), and it's OK...JUST AS some of the Conn model 8D French horns (made in Texas) were OK...and SOME OF the Conn model 88H/72H/62H/78H/6H/44H (etc.) trombones made in Texas were "OK". Texas (mostly) used Elkhart tooling/designs, but with inexperienced labor...and "labor" rather than "craftsmen".
One or two that I'm selling are hybrids - 26" bell model 38K's (that I bought with worn-out standard pistons - the 38K and 20K bodies being the SAME, with possibly only some brace styling being a bit different) and I stuck GOOD (fiberglass) 22K short-action valvesets in the cases with them before shoving them into the attic.
Checking back through my own stock (yesterday), I also saw that at least one (which I purchased as a "genuine" 20K) had been purchased with worn valves, but that I had sent it off to Dave Secrist, the valves were rebuilt, and then I stuck it in the attic with the rest of them.
If this works out (??), it could be good for me, because (in the past) these (restored ones) weren't bringing enough dough to really motivate me, though (watching what was occurring with the brand new ones - over the years) I suspected that their value would go up - in relation to the pricing of brand new ones.
ALL OF THAT having been said...
The post-2020 top-down engineered hyperinflation simply means that (regardless of how many dollars someone has) those dollars aren't worth a damn, and - when receiving MORE dollars that are only spending like roughly HALF that number of dollars spent only a handful of years ago - the HIGHER NUMBER of dollars received defines a HIGHER PERCENTAGE of government confiscation of those dollars...though the government didn't remove any of the dents, didn't fix any of the moving parts issues, didn't sandblast any of the surfaces, didn't silver plate any of the instruments, didn't drive to-and-from Indiana with them, and didn't hang around in some armpit yankee town for several days waiting for the instruments to be processed.
