Dan Schultz had an excellent website with a reference-level page cataloging and detailing many Marzan tubas. He never made his way from the old board to this one... And his website doesn't have that page anymore. As I understand it, he has to change from an old website host to a new one, and as an old guy with other interests, he just hasn't rebuilt the site.
Overall, these can be really nice tubas, made in the early 1970s. There were two sizes, medium and large, in both BBb and CC (and I've even seen an Eb)... The large ones (both piston and slant rotor) were made by B&M in Geretsreid Germany... B&M would later become Nirschl. The medium ones were made by Willson in Flums, Switzerland. Two heavy hitters in the quality department, so they are well made instruments.
The BBb is generally regarded as having better intonation than the CC; it was designed in BBb, then cut to CC. I think they were all pretty good, and although I haven't played a ton of them, none of them were bad. If anything, I would say that if you compare the tolerances and construction consistency to modern tubas, you're going to find some differences. For example, when I had a valve alignment done on my CC, I was told that the valves and the ports did not completely align perfectly, which was normal for instruments of the time, because of the way that they were manufactured. Today, everything is computerized and done with extremely high tolerances, so we don't get those issues anymore. I'm sure that's correct, but for a player like me, I don't know what kind of difference it really made, lol.
In general, I think that they're really nice playing tubas and have a great sound. For me, they tend to play a little bit brightly, with a really really strong projection. So it's not quite a seismic experience back there, but the sound goes way out front quickly, and cuts through very well. It's not to say there's no presence, but you're not going to fool someone into thinking you have a 6/4 York back there.
In my limited experience, I've also thought that the piston and rotor versions sounded much more similar than different. The body and the bell of the tuba are identical between the two just the valve sections are different. To me, the difference in the rotary versus tuba sound is not because of the type of valves, because of the shape of everything else.
In terms of value, they generally are on the low side. I got mine about 15 to 20 years ago, and really didn't pay very much for it. I think that being a lesser-known brand helps keep the prices down, but also I just don't think that they were very popular to begin with. They were sort of a sleeper, being a well-made European tuba that played well and sounded well.
These days, the 4/4 CC (and I guess BBb too) market is so flooded with Chinese tubas of varying quality and low prices, and German-made tubas of higher quality and higher prices, I don't think the Marzan tubas necessarily hold their value so well either, except for the fact that they're older, becoming less common still, and have that vintage kind of factor associated with it now. I think the notion of what an old tuba is has changed, and what it means. These tubas are probably about 55 years old, and that is a different thing for us now. That is, if it was 1980 and you bought a 55-year-old tuba, you're buying something really old from a totally different time in tuba construction. But being in the 2020s and buying something 55 years old has a different meaning now. In the 1970s, things were pretty well figured out, and although not as perfect as they are today, still much farther along than they were in the 1920s and 1930s.
Anyway, all that to say, I like these tubas, I like the way they look I like the way they play and I like the way they sound.
Post some pictures of them? Please?
