Unknown Euphonium Brand

[paleo]

Hello Everyone

Hopefully this is the right place to start this thread. I am new to this Forum as I am about to buy my first euphonium.
So I was looking around in the web and found an used Euphonium - a compensating one. The seller named the brand "Sterling" and he told me it was made in England.

On the photos in the internet the engraving on the bell was not really recognizable. But I was shure it looked not like JP, or at least not like a new one.
I asked the seller to take a close up photography of the engraving, which I'd like you to show (unfortunately he has a very bad camera - I think he is an elderly man ).

The typography of "Sterling" looks like the one from very cheap ones. (google for sterling euphonium and look for a black logo with a lion)

Can anybody tell me something about this brand on the photo? I would be very pleased to get some further information.

Greetings and thanks in advance
Paleo

[davewerden]

Welcome to the forum!

First, see if you can get the seller to get a clear photo of the valve buttons (that your fingertips contact). Early Sterlings had a unique shape that was hexagonal or octagonal.

Here is the earliest brochure I have from Sterling, probably around 1990:

http://www.dwerden.com/Special/Sterl...ngBrochure.pdf

The text of the logo looks similar, but there is not lion shown.

[paleo]

Thanks for the fast reply.

Well the valve buttons are round, and the font of the Sterling-logo seen in your brochure is quite different.
The font seen on my picture looks more like the one you can find in the following Link to eBay.

https://www.ebay.ch/itm/381041178137...203&rmvSB=true

I hope that the instrument I'm looking at is not such a chinese one.

[davewerden]

Ah, that photo helps. It's a pretty sure thing that the horn in the photo is Chinese. Notice the 4th valve coming in between the large tube and 3rd valve slides. Sterling has never done that, as far as I know. I've only seen Chinese horns with that design.

AND the horn pictured is NOT compensating.

[paleo]

Uh, I think I made some confusion in my last post, I'm very sorry for that.

The one I linked is not the one I want to buy! It just has a very similar Sterling-logo.

I'll attach the photos of the one I'd like to buy.

[davewerden]

I hope Doug checks in for this one. He might have better recognition skills for a Sterling.

However, I'm 95% sure this is a Chinese horn, so the quality would be unknown unless someone has had experience with this "Sterling" brand.

[bbocaner]

I have a vague recollection of Sterling UK-made instruments having a logo like that in the early 1990s, when Steven Mead was an endorser. I wouldn't write it off as Chinese so quickly as it doesn't have any of those hallmarks. Plus, the engraving does seem to say "made in Great Britain"

Perhaps send Paul Riggett a query about it?

[daruby]

The pictures of the compensating horn do not look like a Sterling made by Paul Riggett.

Issues:

1. The tubing ends on the slides have reinforcing rings. Sterling Musical Instruments does not do this.
2. The valve section is not Bauerfeind.
3. This is a lacquer horn. Almost all Sterling Musical Instruments instruments are silver plated.

[paleo]

Thanks for all your replys and evaluations. I do now have some further Information:
It was bought in 2001 and it was then priced around 3.500 - 4000 $. The owner turns 70 this year and I think I can trust him.

Now I try to contact sterling. Maybe they can tell me something. I'll keep you up-to-date.

[bbocaner]

My bet is it being a very early production Paul Rigget UK-made Sterling. The reinforcing rings Doug mentioned are present on a lot of the older Sterlings you see although Doug is right they aren't there today. Doug's right that it doesn't look like a Bauerfind valve section (I don't think the compensating loop connection between the first and second valves is the right shape) however the pictures aren't great and they may have also had a different design or a different source for valve sections way back when. The valve buttons and caps aren't the same either, but those could have been changed or they could have had a different design in the early days? There are some details that do scream Sterling, though. The most obvious to me is the shape of the 1st and 3rd valve tuning slides -- it has that elongated shape that you see on Sterling euphoniums and NOT on JP Sterling, any of the Jin-Bao instruments, or any of the other Chinese makers.

[davewerden]

Good observations, Barry. Since I was involved with Sterling starting around 1989, I can comment on some of the legacy stuff.

You're correct that the slide-end reinforcing rings were used for a while. Paul and I discussed these. I liked their looks, and Paul thought the horn looked cleaner without them (and was easier to make). So some Sterling had them in those days. As far as I know, the Virtuoso model never did.

I'm not sure exactly when Paul began to use Bauerfind valves (I believe he has switched to a different valve now). But in the early days, Paul's folks made the valves by hand. I watched a set being made on the workbench, and it was the first time I saw how complex the task was! Also, in those days the stainless steel valves used a round nylon valve guide instead of the rectangular shape that is almost universally used. I actually liked that idea!

[paleo]

Thanks to the guys at John Packer I was able to contact Paul Riggett. He confirmed that they used that Logo until 1991. He didn't mention anything else about the Instrument.
Maybe there were some parts replaced in all these years, but at least it seems to be an original Euphonium made in Great Britain.

I'm going to buy it So exciting!

[davewerden]

Thanks for closing the loop. This turned out to be a remarkably challenging question! I must have played one or more of those early horns, because I switched to Sterling in 1990. Sure don't remember the logo, though! And the brochures I was given (which, at the time, had a complete range of brass instruments) showed only the block text with no graphic.