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Carl is offering this for sale...

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 10:53 am
by bloke
...and I hope @Christian doesn't mind being tagged.

The Miraphone 282 is a superb (intonation, etc.) smaller B-flat - yet with model 86-bore rotors.

Much more recently, the very-highly-touted (and not just by Miraphone, but by reviewers) Miraphone model 494 (3/4 B-flat) has been introduced. I'm pretty sure that it's smaller than the 282 throughout.

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When I was in high school (c. 1972 or so...and probably they were produced a bit earlier), the model 1270 "Standard" and model 1271 (three/four top-action piston B-flat tubas) were introduced by Miraphone with a c. 17mm (.669") bore size. ...I believe their competitor was/were the Meinl-Weston 10/11 models.



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The ORIGINAL TOP-ACTION Miraphone model 1270 (as our school system really couldn't afford the four-valve 1271), played pretty well, actually.
(The houses surrounding the high school were c. 900 sq. ft., lap siding, no porch, and gravel parking.)

Later on, Miraphone took this model, flipped it to four-valve front-action, and increased the bore size.
To date, I've never had the opportunity to play this later/larger-bore/front-action adaptation.

I've always wondered about them.
I sorta wonder if they might actually could have sold a ton of them, were it not that they were introduced in the midst of the "anything bigger is better" American tuba craze.

Carl's looks to be in particularly well-preserved condition.
I believe the bore size is the same as with the model 85 (rotary) tubas.

Something else - with its .740" bore size and with the SLANT config, this valveset is probably the "ideal" that so many "frankentubaists" are looking for - to use in their "builds" (though it would be a damn shame to pull this one off of this tuba).

Carl's tuba - here - appears to only ask for a couple of (easy) alterations, in order for it to have the tuning-on-the-fly slides that players expect to see, these days.

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Re: Carl is offering this for sale...

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 11:16 am
by DonO.
“When I was in high school (c. 1972 or so...and probably they were produced a bit earlier), the model 1270 "Standard" and model 1271 (three/four top-action piston B-flat tubas) were introduced by Miraphone with a c. 17mm (.669") bore size. ...I believe their competitor was/were the Meinl-Weston 10/11 models.”

You and I are the same age. When my high school bought new tubas during the same period of time, our director went with MW 10s. For one simple reason. They had something that Miraphone didn’t. That instrument was available in a convertible configuration. You could make it contra style for marching band. My high school band director was of the marching-band-is-life-and-the-more-we-look-and-sound-like-a-drum-corps-the-better mindset, so this made perfect sense to him. I thought they played fine for concert but I had very limited experience.

Re: Carl is offering this for sale...

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 11:17 am
by LeMark
Very interesting tuba, I may have to find the time to go up there and play it

Re: Carl is offering this for sale...

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 11:20 am
by DonO.
Where can we see the ad?

Re: Carl is offering this for sale...

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 11:37 am
by LeMark
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/62Lzzt ... tid=oFDknk


I will say if I hadn't already bought the Norwegian star, I would probably be on my way to check this out right now. At that price point, I couldn't justify buying it when I already have a small BBb I'm happy with. The only way I justified buying the Star was that I sold my unique and amazing adams Euphonium

Although I do have something in the works for a larger BBb... Stay tuned