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A recently for sale tuba has got me curious.

Anyone here have a quality closeup shot of a york 91 engraving?

Thanks!

Here are a few of my 1895 Conn Eb... The tuba isn't in good shape, but it works. Might be a neat project to make it more functional or at least more stable... But for now, the engraving is pretty.

Here's the 1929 Martin Eb. I'm staggered that this tuba is almost 100 years old!

@bort2.0 The engraving on both of those instruments is lovely. I'm particularly impressed by the size the engraving on the Conn.

cjk wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 12:03 pm @bort2.0 The engraving on both of those instruments is lovely. I'm particularly impressed by the size the engraving on the Conn.

Thanks! The Conn bell shined up quite nicely, and was a pleasant surprise under a LOT of crud and tarnish. The rest of the horn functions, but needs a lot of attention. The rim of the bell needs attention too, and the inside isn't so pretty. I'm not interested in spending money on it, except possibly to stabilize it and take it to Tuba Christmas to compete for "oldest tuba." Even then, I'm not super interested.

The Martin is overall in great shape, and I keep yakking about it. Satin silver finish on the tuba, except behind the engraving and inside the bell is polished. Super pretty.

Thought y'all would be interested in this engraving on the back of my Alexander 163 bell. I don't know the history behind this, maybe at some point, Rudy Meinl was helping Alexander make tuba bells?

JB

The best thing about my 1959 Conn Eb 14J is the naked lady engraving.

^^^^^^^^

Betty

tubamuphone wrote: ↑Mon Mar 14, 2022 3:33 pm Thought y'all would be interested in this engraving on the back of my Alexander 163 bell. I don't know the history behind this, maybe at some point, Rudy Meinl was helping Alexander make tuba bells?

JB

That's different. Can you post pictures of the entire instrument?

Here's the whole horn and the normal Alexander engraving on the bell. This was Dennis Miller's old Alex, it's awesome but the Rudy Meinl engraving on the back is curious...

tubamuphone wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 11:05 am Here's the whole horn and the normal Alexander engraving on the bell. This was Dennis Miller's old Alex, it's awesome but the Rudy Meinl engraving on the back is curious...

....

I read the engraving as saying:
RUDOLF MEINL MODEL
RM15 (then a serial number which i can't completely make out, but it doesn't matter)

I'd guess he bought that tuba from Custom Music Company.
IIRC, CMC also sold Rudolf Meinl tubas. There used to be models RM10 and RM15. RM doesn't have those models anymore and haven't used those names for maybe 40 years (?) now.

(Aside: or did RM ever use those names or were RM10 and RM15 made up model numbers by CMC like they made up HB1, HB2, etc...?)

The RM tubas didn't have serial numbers from the factory or markings about what model they were. Custom Music Company put serial numbers on them. I expect they put serial numbers on Alexanders they sold also. I'm betting that CMC put that engraving on that Alex by accident. Hopefully Dennis got a deal on it as a result. :)

Pure conjecture on my part.

Is it possible that engravers moonlighted as pinstripers and tattoo artistes??

This is on a Russian(?) Helicon in the repair shop. Would like to know if anyone knows more about it.

Not a tuba, but check out this gorgeous two-tone bell, with both satin and polished silver. Inside of the bell is gold wash. Tough to photograph!

If they don't need to be tubas, here's the engraving from an 1887-1889 York & Son trombone:



1887 because that's when the name was changed to "& Son" and
1889 because that's when I believe serialization started, this trombone has none and the slide & bell have the same embossing of brace bases and ferrules so they appear to be a set.

...a repeat, but the 1966 5-valve 186 C (that I just brought back to life and sold to someone "up north") features kranz engraving identical to the engraving on the kranz seen below:

bloke wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 9:18 pm Here is a 60-year-old "MIRAFONE" kranz that I saved from a trashed bell (for possible future transplant to another bell).

I suspect that quite a few have not seen these delicately-engraved kranz's from this era, so (though both risky to me and to the kranz to buff this kranz when not supported by a bell) I buffed it - enough so that you folks could see it.

Cerveny CBB 686 Symphonia 3

Thread has lain dormant...

With further ado...

Tracked something what i thought worth sharing, but been too lazy to track down or photo, and even now am merely satisfied with this as is, and not feeling motivated to achieve any form of excellence...

Sufficiently adone?