YCB-621 appearing on an auction site

[bloke]

..

[russiantuba]

They are great standing gig and quintet horns. I normally see them around $4,000-$5000 for a lacquer, but have seen decent condition ones for $3500.

I would like to play any horn before buying that I couldn’t return. I picked $3000

[bloke]

pre-hyperinflation, I had never been able to sell one for more than $3500.

I was just curious what the current TFFJ thought of them, so thnx for the responses.

This is one of those makes/models that my own biases usually cause me to pass over (for flipping purposes) regardless of how low the price.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_maid_(card_game)

[the elephant]

I am replacing my earlier post with the following statement:

I am an idiot.

[bloke]

I sold my bare brass, hot-rodded one for $6000 about eight years ago.

I wasn't aware that you/Wade owned a 621 C.
...but I don't know a whole bunch of stuff.

I'm thinking I bought a new-condition (used) silver one (C) for $2000 - quite a few years ago, played it on one gig a week later, found myself doing a bunch of these during the job, and then sold it someone local for the same amount a week after that.

[cjk]

"what these sell for" is very very important because they don't play particularly well compared to other stuff which costs approximately the same I M H O.

[matt g]

I’ve always seen these as $3000-3500 tubas.

I’d probably pick the Mack version with the 5th valve with all else being equal.

If I really wanted a smallish CC with 4 valves, I’d just hunt for a 2J/3J in decent condition.

[Pat S]

I've got the Mack Brass version of the YCB-621 and I've really enjoyed it so far.

[the elephant]

I sold my bare brass, hot-rodded one for $6000 about eight years ago.

I wasn't aware that you/Wade owned a 621 C.
...but I don't know a whole bunch of stuff.

I'm thinking I bought a new-condition (used) silver one (C) for $2000 - quite a few years ago, played it on one gig a week later, found myself doing a bunch of these during the job, and then sold it someone local for the same amount a week after that.

Whoops! I did not "C" the "C" in the "YCB" — But I "C" it now. As the bozos are wont to say: My bad…

[bloke]

' sure glad I've never misread anything and offered forth the wrong information...

[bort2.0]

I don't particularly like any of the little Yamahas.

They are fun to play until you need to play with more than a couple of other people. For me, they are too small to be of any real practical use.

So says the guy with a pretty small Eb tuba.

[bloke]

I don't particularly like any of the little Yamahas.

They are fun to play until you need to play with more than a couple of other people. For me, they are too small to be of any real practical use.

So says the guy with a pretty small Eb tuba.

My Holton B-flat is only 32 inches tall, may possibly weigh a couple of pounds more, does have a fifth valve, but I'm sure (potentially) puts out twice as much sound as the B flat or C 621, slurs like butter, is easy to play in tune, and the bore size is the same as the 621's.

[the elephant]

Allow me to take you all back to Manhattan in the Autumn of 1986, back to 151 West 46th Street…

As per my habit, I show up on a Saturday morning around 10:30, ready to annoy old Bob Giardinelli. He is not always there on Saturdays, but he knows me because I am a pest, a very regular customer who wants to do everything but spend money. Despite this, Bob is always very nice to me. A savvy businessman, he knows there may not be much money jingling in my pockets, but there is *some* in them, and he also knows I feel guilty for being a perpetual tire kicker. He starts offering me special backroom discounts, and I become one of his means to clear out junky old stock, so long as it falls below a certain price point.

He sells me a complete set of BRAND NEW chrome plated Olds Ultratone G bugles. It was the store's demo set. He got them in 1968 and used them until no one wanted piston/rotor bugles anymore, which was about 1985 when even the DCA corps stopped getting them as replacements. DCI had started moving on a few years earlier, and even then, they only ordered individual replacement horns — never a full set. So these were in more or less perfect condition, each in its nice, black Olds hard case, except for the contra, which was in a clear plastic bag, heh, heh…

He sold me the complete set of five instruments for $700. (The contra cost me $150.) This deal spun out over three months, but I bought them all. I cleaned them up and sold them off to the Long Island Sunrisers and the Connecticut Hurricanes. I kept the contra for a while because it was fun to play.

Bob showed me his box of old tuba mouthpieces that he allowed customers to use in the "Tuba Room". I asked him, "How much, each?" He told me, and I bought one on every visit to the store whenever I could not afford anything else. I have been selling those mouthpieces off here in small batches for the last ten years, by the way. If you picked up one of my used mouthpieces, it almost certainly came to me from Bob's box of used tuba mouthpieces. One very nice pair of Cerveny A45 mouthpieces was hand cut to be a single screw-rim mouthpiece with a matching acrylic rim by John Stork at his shop a few blocks away. (I forget which one of you guys bought it. I hated selling that piece.)

I bought all this stuff specifically so that Bob would not restrict my access to the famed "Tuba Room". I visited regularly, and I would spend about four hours in this room playing every horn he had in stock. Every time. Probably three times a month, for about three years. The poor man actually knew my name…

My favorites were the Alexander 173, the Yamaha YEB-321 with the funky removable rotary valve, the "nice" Yamaha Eb (I can never remember the number), and an old fixed recording bell York BBb with three valves. I also really liked the new Yamaha YCB-621. I had recently seen CB live, and they were still using the gold-plated Schilke instruments, so I was pretty excited to try this "Daellenbach" model tuba. It was fantastic. I wanted it so badly, too. But this tuba, this demo horn, had one flaw I could not get around: the open, low C, at any volume above mezzo forte, was very blatty. I used my mouthpieces. I used Bob's. None of them could produce this pitch with anything like
a pleasing tone.

What a shame. It was a very nice tuba in all other regards. I have never played one as well assembled since, and have never liked one as much, either. I have noted on many occasions, that Yamaha will occasionally design and build a fine tuba, and then over time will tweak that design until it has achieved a level of "brilliant mediocrity" — WTF, Yamaha?

[bloke]

It's pretty obvious to all of us based on what he has played and used is that one of Charles' main requirements for a tuba with it quintet is one that is somewhat lightweight.
We all know that he's both played that model as well as one with a fancy type of plastic bell.

I think he might be at a point where I am (of seeking another rabbit hole to make it interesting), because he called me about a front-mounted compensating Besson E flat that I had for sale. He reported to me that he had never played the E-flat before. I had already sold it but I directed him to Brett, and I'm pretty sure he bought that one.

Giardinelli store:
I've heard a lot of stories of fond memories including when he started bringing in B&S instruments.
I suspect those things probably cost him a couple of hundred bucks a piece, back then.
I bought my first tuba from him mail order as I've mentioned before, and it was a gray market Miraphone that was spelled with a PH and featured no serial number.

[cjk]

...
My favorites were the Alexander 173, the Yamaha YEB-321 with the funky removable rotary valve, the "nice" Yamaha Eb (I can never remember the number),
....

YEB-631 ? 3+1 compensated, 17.5-ish inch bell?

[bloke]

YEP-381...not removable (but the euphonium version was removable).

sidebar: People insist that the length of those was this or that, but I've always found them to be "in the cracks" between adjusted semitone and adjusted whole tone, as (in order to get used ones sold) I've had to add length to those 5th slides.

[Rick Denney]

Giardinelli would have been exotic to we Houston brats back in the day when Wade was still in diapers. That’s about the time they started selling the B&S tubas. But we all wanted Miraphones. Maybe that was the Bill Rose influence locally. The go-to discount house for us was the Wichita Band Instrument Company, but all of that was out of reach for me.

After my hiatus, I spent some time with a 621 (Bb or C I don’t recall) at a store in Austin. That was maybe 1984 or so. I was really back at beginner status, but the conclusion was it would take a lot more air than I had, small size notwithstanding. The store guy said school kids were hopeless on that instrument because of that. I ended up with a Cerveny/Amati-made Sanders from Custom, because it was cheap enough. (I still couldn’t afford a Miraphone, despite chatting with this guy in Memphis whose ad in the TUBA Journal feathered a 188.) The Sanders was certainly a big improvement over the 3-valve Besson Stratford that had done 20 years of school duty, and it seemed much easier to play with a big sound than the 621, even with the substantially larger bore (.795?). The F version that I bought six years later, and some after chops restoration, was a whole other thing—bugle length appropriate for the small size for those without Daellenbach’s lungs.

I have two small contrabass tubas now—an Eastman version of the 2341 and a Miraphone 184. The latter is nearly the perfect quintet tuba for me at present because of its hood intonation and blend. But the 621 F still works. The Eastman plays and sounds more like a 4/4–good in band depending on who is in the section that cycle.

Every time I’ve tried the Bb 621, and that has been a number of times but never for very long, the conclusion for me has always been “stuffy and small.” And so it was for the acquaintance in San Antonio who played it for years, too. Both of us lacked what that instrument required.

Rick “too much bugle for the outer branches” Denney

[the elephant]

YEP-381...not removable (but the euphonium version was removable).

sidebar: People insist that the length of those was this or that, but I've always found them to be "in the cracks" between adjusted semitone and adjusted whole tone, as (in order to get used ones sold) I've had to add length to those 5th slides.

This one was fully removable. And it was a 321 Eb. I nearly bought it. You could buy this dependent 5th valve as an upgrade kit. The lever and everything just had to be inserted into the 4th slide tubes and you were ready to go. This was a flat half-step (or a .75-step) valve. It was very nice. I have only ever seen these kits two or three times since 1987 or so. They may have been Giardinelli House-made stuff and not Yamaha. I took this one off and played with it because it was so clever.

[bloke]

YEP-381...not removable (but the euphonium version was removable).

sidebar: People insist that the length of those was this or that, but I've always found them to be "in the cracks" between adjusted semitone and adjusted whole tone, as (in order to get used ones sold) I've had to add length to those 5th slides.

This one was fully removable. And it was a 321 Eb. I nearly bought it. You could buy this dependent 5th valve as an upgrade kit. The lever and everything just had to be inserted into the 4th slide tubes and you were ready to go. This was a flat half-step (or a .75-step) valve. It was very nice. I have only ever seen these kits two or three times since 1987 or so. They may have been Giardinelli House-made stuff and not Yamaha. I took this one off and played with it because it was so clever.

obviously such a short era that it flew by in a matter of (maybe?) months...

re length: I'm pretty sure that length was the INTENTION with the 381...but I could NEVER make it play an A natural (4th valve + 5th valve) high enough...and it certainly wouldn't pull out far enough for an A-flat...again: I'm referring to the subsequent 381. I wonder if they f'ed up the circuit length when they moved from the euphonium-like auxilliary part to the fixed valve? (and maybe others have had better luck with 381's that they've bought...??)

whatever...

The model you describe was perhaps offered for a microsecond, and the subsequent YEB-381 was (maybe?) offered for a week, before they shelved both and offered the YEB-631 (which - admittedly - was a sweetheart compensating model, and they've yet to equal it).

[the elephant]

It was not the 381. It had the maroon painted (decal?) model number and it was YEB-321. The 5th was dependent and replaced the 4th slide. And it was available for a few years. I am sorry if you didn't have the "pulse of Yamaha" for every model they offered. Please stop attempting to correct me. (This is sort of like that guy who was hassling you about grammar while he was using poor grammar, or whatever it was that you were complaining about earlier. Thanks.)