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Can anyone pretty please positively identify this model sousa? Pretty sure it's a Conn, but ... Right now it's got a very wrong 3rd valve, so need to source the correct one for this model. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Looks like a 14K. Any 3rd piston out of a 36K/14K/32K/38K would probably work.

Pretty sure it's not a 14K. The other two pistons measure 1.0535". Allied sells replacement pistons for the 14K measuring 1.045"; significantly smaller. Any other guesses as to the model?

Could it be a 32K? Do you have the serial #?

If I’m not mistaken, wouldn’t the 32K use the same valve section? The only difference it would have is heavier bracing to be a 32K, right? All of them (14K, 36K, 38K, 32K, and their 4/4 size helicons) all used the same basic valve section as far as I know… Maybe I’m totally wrong.

arpthark wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2026 9:41 am Could it be a 32K? Do you have the serial #?

SN is 879182

To narrow down the number of models it could be, please measure the diameter of the bell tenon and ring. Although since it is silver plate, I am tending towards a 14K, simply because many of the other models, especially after WWII, were never offered in silverplate. And as mentioned above, this basic valve block was made for at least a century or more for many different models, so finding a third valve should not be that difficult. That said:

20K and 22K valves will not fit, as that is the different short-stroke block.
Certain early Pan Am and other student models may not fit, because some of them have the King-style (in a Conn block) .687 bore.

iiipopes wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2026 3:54 pm To narrow down the number of models it could be, please measure the diameter of the bell tenon and ring.

Customer has the bell and is on vacation, so I can't check, but the 'female' part of the bell receiver (horn body) is 6.09 inches in diameter.