Well, I just had a first in all my 55 years of playing euphonium. I was practicing this evening and at about the 1 1/2 hour mark, I noticed my first valve was not returning to the full upright position. I pressed it a couple times and it felt real squishy. I took the valve out, leaned the horn over, and out came my 1st valve spring totally broken at about the third loop down, but still dangling together with the coating stuff on the spring. I have never had a spring break on me. And the springs weren't "that" old, maybe a little over a year. They were put in by Lee Stofer when he had my horn last spring, and I got it back at ITEC in June. I think they were Yamaha coated springs. I liked them okay up until tonight. Well, fortunately I still have my original Adams springs. I will use them for now.
Here is a picture of the minor catastrophe:
Edit: After replacing the Yamaha coated springs with my Adams springs, voila, my valves work better. I had been noticing that I couldn't seem to get fast passages cleanly lately, even though I was practicing the dickens out of them. I just played a few and they are totally clean now. Hmmmm. Maybe my Yamaha springs were going on the fritz and I didn't know it.