Conn/Pam Frankentuba, Bb, 3v

[Tubaskinny]

Hello:
I have this big old 5/4 Conn tuba that I got from Lee Stofer a couple of years ago. Its an upright bell horn with a 20 inch bell. It has top action valves. The valve section is not original to the horn. The body was branded Pan American but as most people on this forum know that means it was made by Conn. Its silverplated but the plating is quite worn. The plating on the inside of the bell was so worn that Lee removed the rest of the silver, buffed it an lacquered it. The valve section is not silverplated but lacquered. I'm unclear when the valve section was made. The valves have been replated and are smooth with good compression. The slides work very well. As most people on this forum know Lee Stofer does excellent work and a horn coming out of his shop is as good as its going to be. I visited Martin Wilk with this horn and he did some further alignment on the valves. So basically for what this horn is, and old Franken Conn thats been around the block its as good as its going to be.

That being said these old Conns do not have perfect intonation. The trade off is it plays very easily and produces a beautiful rich tone. The intonation on this one seems rather good to me though. For me the F and the E in the middle of the horn is alittle flat. If you use 1 and 3 for the F and 123 for the E though the are in tune. The famous flat C of Conn though is not flat. Also Ive found if I play this horn for a few days I start to naturally lip the F in tune without using the valves. Again the trade off is it plays beautifully.....

I bought this horn to practice on during the shutdown but after things reopened I don't have use much use for an upright bell tuba. I use a sousaphone or a recording bell horn. So its been sitting around long enough that I thought Id see if somebody was interested in it. I paid 1750 for it but I'm open to offers. I'm not desperate to sell it so I wont go to low.

I don't know how to put pictures up here. I'm going to try and figure it out but for now email me at tshornrepair@gmail.com and I'll send you pictures. Okay thanks.