Vintage short-action 4-valve euphonium by Rudall-Carte, plucked from British soil in 1920. - 1920 predates US patents for brass instrument short-action designs (1923 trumpet, 1932 low brass). Conn finally introduced short action valves in 1934.
- Excellent player.
- Tunes to modern pitch.
- Valves are in immaculate condition and have very good compression (see last 2 pics).
- Tri-bore design; 4th valve has the largest bore (see last 2 pics).
- Intonation is not bad for 1920; slightly sharp in 2nd octave. My guess is the bugle gets wide quickly and remains almost cylindrical (see pic2), pulling the overtones up a bit in the 2nd octave. Cylindrical paths theoretically reduce even overtones while accentuating odd overtones, resulting in beautiful ringing high notes and organ-like low notes. Intonation is manageable with alt fingerings, slight lipping, or slides.
Ready to play - let me know if you need a mouthpiece (takes normal tenor-shank mpc).
I speculate Rudall-Carte was the first maker to use short-action valves, as attested by David Blaikley (coauthor) in his 1890 Book "A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments recently exhibited...," the two short-action examples are credited as "Lent by Messrs. Rudall, Carte and Co."
This exact horn is the only exemple of a Rudall-Carte euph on horn-u-copia.net:
https://www.horn-u-copia.net/show.ph...udall-Carte%22
"This company which was established in 1852 as successors to Rudall & Rose, in 1856 became an important military music establishment. They were succeeded by Rudall Carte & Co, in 1872. Rudall Carte was bought by Boosey and Hawkes in about 1944."
Condition.
Heavy patina and water stains (these can be polished away with Brasso polish, brass is in good condition and shows no evidence of fragility - probably high copper content/good mixing/no residual strain). Otherwise, the euphonium is in ready-to-play condition. Valves work great and are in immaculate condition (see last 2 pics). Slides & caps appear brighter in color because they were ultrasonically cleaned. All slides are free.