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I couldn't help grabbing this one. Was only 6-7 miles from my house so my curiosity got the best of me. It was very dirty and stinky. Very tarnished and has lots of spots. Looked like someone poured cleaner on it at one time. The top 3 photos were taken after cleaning it for about an hour. I kind of felt sorry for it. Nice rich tone. Seems to be a little low - but not low pitch. Maybe 15 cents. I not making judgments yet. I want to get everything working and new felts.

"The Elk" Tuba
Elkhart Band Inst. Co.
BBb 3 valve tuba
22-inch bell & 36-37" tall Bore 725
Silver with bright trim, gold wash bell.
The bell seems to be some type of gold lacquer.
Pretty heavy - not thin metal for sure.

economy line Buescher

Any chance it might be a good player?

Tim Jackson wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2023 7:40 pm Any chance it might be a good player?

If I wasn't trying to pay off debt from propping my kids up during the shutdown, I might buy it if it was a few hundred bucks, but the problem with stuff like that these days is that valve rebuilding prices have tripled upon the retirement of Dave Secrist, and valves are always a wild card. I would sort of expect those pistons to be raw nickel silver.

Most of them that bear the Buescher name feature really really long mouthpipes, and - to me - they play funny but sometimes end up being really good C instruments with simply two feet removed from their capillary portions. That one seems to not have that super long mouthpipe feature, so it might actually play pretty nicely - at least, to my tastes, but who knows?

Looks like BBb to me.

yes

I was thinking that as the 1st and 3rd valve tubing goes ‘up’ before going ‘down’, that layout reminded me on Conn (but I’ll defer to Bloke).

I’d also say BBb as there is an extra loop in the top half of #3 tubing.

I need to drag out a couple of Buescher water keys. I have some. I can compare them to that picture. They had a particular look to them... but who knows if they made the cheaper versions exactly the same...(??)

I've also tended to associate larger diameter brace rods with Buescher - more like a quarter inch in diameter (as with King/Olds/ Reynolds).

I've always associated Elkhart with Buescher (certainly saxophones really similar engraving - carrying the Elkhart name), and Pan American with Conn, just as Grand Rapids/USA Line was a budget line of York.

If it is Conn, I would consider there to be a higher likelihood that the tuning is more wonky.

It seems to me that the Buescher B-flat tuba models tuning was generally better, and the Conn baritone horn models' tuning was almost always way better compared to Buescher, so the two companies had different strengths.

I'm also looking at those main slide cross brace rods in way other than their diameter; I believe if they were Conn Pan American, they would still probably feature some ornate turning.

I believe Emil Blessing started out making valve sets for the various Indiana manufacturers. On eBay, I've seen a few sure things that go up and then return back down like as with Conn models we've seen and repaired. In my barn, I have one little Pan American E-flat where the tubing goes up and comes back down, and I have another little Pan American E-flat where the tubing just goes down. Something that may have determined that might have been orders received for instruments, and valve blocks he may have already assembled and set aside, but everything I'm typing in this post is conjecture. I believe I would know better if I could put my hands on that instrument, even though I should probably be able to identify it from pictures.

Buescher made a lot of stuff that was .726" bore, all the way up to the last fiberglass sousaphones that Selmer USA built, but we can't measure the bore or anything, obviously.

My comments about my observations on tuning characteristics were an attempt to address the original post. I'm trying to do just a little bit better in regards to staying on topic. I'm not sure if that's important or not but I've been trying to lately.

I wasn't around when this stuff was made, so I don't "know" anything for certain, and/but a whole lotta stuff looks a whole lot like a whole lotta other stuff...
Some Martin recording bass bells fit some Reynolds bodies.
Holton and York 32" tall 19" bell body bows and bells are just about interchangeable.
King bottom bows fit either of the above, and King small upper bows (third wrap) fit onto those two other makes lower bows.
King and Getzen 50 pistons and casings are - the best I can surmise - completely identical (yet some insist that Getzen made those for their model 50 ).
A bunch of Conn and Buescher stuff looks really similar (including 14K Conn and Signet/Buescher/Bundy - aka Selmer, USA - sousaphones)
But that doesn't mean that they are all made in the same place, or that - since two or three manufacturers were in one town, that means that the largest one is the most likely one to have made something.

One thing I can do, though, is read.

...and this is one of the (not econo-line "Elkhart", but) "Buescher" branded tubas, which is here:

Miraphone 186

What things make an economy line instrument cheaper? Are the bells, bows, bugles the same? Are the valves the same? I always heard the USA line from York would be a good instrument. Is the "economy line" a method of selling horns at a discount without damaging the price point established for the premium line instruments? Would an economy instrument of yesteryear be better than most middle-line instruments of today since they were mostly hand-made?

TJ

They didn't bother emptying these of all the wrong notes at the factory. Gets expensive -- workers were paid $1 per clam.

OK, with nothing useful to contribute to this thread, I will retreat back into the shadows.