1910 Martin 4 valve Euphonium

[Sara Hood]

A lovely looking, frosted silver, 100+ year old, in good playing condition, horn in need of a new and loving home. https://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-191...0AAOSwo4pYJoql Not mine, but one I saw on Ebay. I just want it to go to a good home. And for Dave to get credit for the sale (smile/laugh).
- Sara

[ghmerrill]

Beautiful instrument. Almost certainly high pitch. One owner from 1910? Yikes!! Looks like it was bought and then immediately stored.

[highpitch]

So the guy (maybe gal) is only 108 years old, with mind & body well enough to list an item on eBay. Truly amazing!

DDG.

[Sara Hood]

I agree; the "one owner" claim seems rather unlikely given the age of the horn. But just maybe it is what collectors sometimes call a "barn find". An item purchased new, then stored away and forgotten about, until the right person comes along and discovers where it has been sitting, in hiding, but also not taking abuse/wear and tear. Kind of like what Gary said. But I really kind of doubt that the original owner survived to post the sales offer. Maybe their descendant, who still thinks of it as "Dad's/Grandad's horn."

Whether that part is true or not, it is still a lovely, old horn with a nice lineage, and possibly a storied provenance. Surely you folks understand why I meddled and posted it to our group (smile/joke).

- Sara

[ghmerrill]

Posting was a good idea. It's potentially an extraordinary find for someone interested in a "period piece" like that. Definitely appears (modulo looking at it in person or getting more details) to be highly collectible or even to be usable in a period group. Assuming it is high pitch (like I said, almost certain, but undetermined), it would be a shame to see it butchered to bring it into 440.

[Sara Hood]

Still for sale

It looks like the Martin euphonium I posted about is, incredibly, still for sale. The owner/ebay vendor had to relist it. Wow! While they are asking $2200 (with free shipping), they do have a "Make Offer" button available.

Is the strong possibility of the horn being high pitch that big a detraction? Or are we all just broke and/or satisfied with the horn(s) we have? (smile/joking)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/28255547536...84.m1436.l2649

- Sara

[carbogast]

It looks like the Martin euphonium I posted about is, incredibly, still for sale. The owner/ebay vendor had to relist it. Wow! While they are asking $2200 (with free shipping), they do have a "Make Offer" button available.

Is the strong possibility of the horn being high pitch that big a detraction? Or are we all just broke and/or satisfied with the horn(s) we have? (smile/joking)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/28255547536...84.m1436.l2649

- Sara

Using a high pitch instrument in a modern ensemble wouldn't work out well at all; it would be very very sharp. You might be able to pull the slides and lip down, but it would be difficult and tiring and concert B natural and C (13 and 123) would be unworkable. I know... I played a 1910 York in High School while the band was waiting for its instruments to arrive. It was a miserable experience! I think that horn would be interesting to a collector, but the price is way off. I think $350 - $1000 is what it'll end up at.

[highpitch]

Well, it is a 4-valve horn so that combo wouldn't be too far off if the slides could move out enough.

It would need at least 3" pull on the main slide to make A=440 if indeed HP.

DG

[Sara Hood]

Wow! A minimum of three inches of adjustment. I did not realize that "in tune" had varied that much over the last 100 or so years.

Just for my edification. So if a horn is "low pitch", does that mean it uses A = 440? Or that it uses something even lower?

- Sara

[highpitch]

Typically, LP is 440Hz=A

HP or "Operatic Pitch" was 452Hz or thereabouts.

The change was mostly occurring in the 1930's, but some manufactures offered HP horns into the 60's.

Dennis

[davewerden]

I disagree about the amount of tuning slide pull needed. Based on math comparing 440 to 452, I would think about somewhere between 1 and 1.5 inches per side of the main slide would do the trick for overall tuning. The 1st and 3rd slides should have enough travel to tune, because they will need less pull. Not sure about the 2nd slide.

[highpitch]

My comment was based on what had to be added overall to my quirky old deVris saxhorn to get it down where it belongs.

The map is not the territory, as they say...

d

[ghmerrill]

Here's one of the tragedies of the old high pitch horns ...

Even if you can manage to pull the slides far enough to get them at a 440 pitch (often quite difficult for the 2nd valve, by the way), the result may be quite unhappy and not quite what you expect. This is because lengthening the instrument in that way (stick with me here, it's going to be a bit analogical ...) "redistributes" the ratios of the relative lengths of the different sections of the horn (from lead pipe through the bell) so the wave forms in the tube have nodes in places where they didn't used to have nodes, and the instrument wasn't originally designed with that in mind.

Sorry that's a bit vague and mushy, but I think you get the idea. Basically, you can imagine that if instead of surgically altering your high pitch instrument you instead sat down to redesign it for the new pitch, you'd do things like lengthen the lead pipe a little, maybe lengthen the bell section a little, or lengthen one of the major bows after the valve section a little. People don't design instruments like this just to fit into a certain space or look nice: there are big issues about how long each section of the instrument should be, what its bore size should be over that section, and what its conical taper (or cylindrical) form should be over that section. All that effects tuning.

For some instruments, the result of this may be negligible. For others it may be quite noticeable. One can only wish upon a star if all you're changing is the lengths of tuning slides.

[Sara Hood]

So from what I am hearing in this thread, and in another thread I started, is that this horn is not likely to update/upgrade to modern tuning very well. It is also not likely to be a compensating horn. These two factors contribute to decreasing its value despite its age and great condition. Would that be a fair summary of what you all are telling me?
- Sara

[davewerden]

So from what I am hearing in this thread, and in another thread I started, is that this horn is not likely to update/upgrade to modern tuning very well. It is also not likely to be a compensating horn. These two factors contribute to decreasing its value despite its age and great condition. Would that be a fair summary of what you all are telling me?
- Sara

More or less. If you want a daily-player and are serious about playing, this is not the horn for you. It's for someone interested in having an antique and who would enjoy playing it because of the coolness. Like driving a nice old car. It is certainly not compensating. Tuning is up in the air. It might be fine with the pulling, notwithstanding what Gary said.