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I recently bought a nearly-new King 606 trombone ("student" model, straight brace, .500" bore) from a parent whose kid quit band and they basically just wanted to get rid of this thing taking up space.

Playing slide is really nice, nickel silver slide tubes. Main tuning slide alignment, meh, so-so. But it plays really well. I recently had a vintage late 1930s King 2B through here, which was also great, and I think the slide tolerances were a little tighter on that, but I would put this in the same weight class as far as sound goes. Maybe a bit more like a 3B.

Very interesting find, and I only had to drive through Connectitucky at 8:30 at night to go get it at this guy's house next to a sawmill in the middle of the woods, with a brisk fall breeze going through the trees. Did I think I might be axe-murdered? Maybe a little bit.

But anyway, what other nice things are Conn-Selmer making these days? I think it's very interesting that they are making these slide tubes out of nickel silver. I wonder what's up with that upgrade? Sharing parts with other "pro" horns in the line?

As far as I'm concerned (other than looks) those are pro-grade instruments. A King 3B tuning slide bow and curved brace are all that are lacking in the appearance dept.

It's a "bridge" instrument between 2B and 3B.

I probably prefer them (as a "budget commercial trombone") over the Yamaha beginner model.

REALLY old versions (80's?) were cheap garbage. I'm thinking there was a short time whereby they were making the inside slide tubes of chrome-plated BRASS (rather than chrome-plated nickel-brass). Those would rot away.

They were good trombones. Too bad King decided to discontinue supporting them. My wife has (had?) a bunch of them from quite a while ago at work and the place that does her repairs has, one by one, aged them out as unrepairable because of the lack of parts.

I have one that is about 10 years old. It is a really nice instrument.