trumpetmike

I picked up a Besson Sovereign cornet in almost perfect condition for £150 - had a touch of work done on it, it played really well but I already had a cornet - I sold it for £500

I found a Getzen long model soprano cornet that was seriously banged up, in the darker recesses of Phil Parkers. It was priced at £150. They said that they would get it looking clean for an extra £50. I am nt one of those guys who minds doing some of the work himself, so I said it was fine, but if they could get the slides moving it would be useful (everything was frozen). They said that they would do this for no charge (apparently it was going to be an easy job) and that they would bring it along to a contest I was involved in the next weekend. They did, indeed, bring it along to the contest - spitting blue murder in my direction - they had been forced to take the majority of the instrument apart in order to get everything working properly - it had taken hours! The joy - because I had already paid for it, there was no charge! !




Ah, the original Boosey & Hawkes 400 was quite a reasonable student instrument (not in the same league as a modern Yamaha student model though). As time went on, the quality of these instruments went downhill and the instrument ended up being nothing to do with Boosey & Hawkes. For many years, Boosey & Hawkes (Besson - The Music Group) tried to stop the makers using the B&H 400 name, due to them wanting nothing to do with those instruments - the quality was damaging their reputation.
About 4 years ago The Music Group finally managed to stop the B&H 400 instruments being produced under tht name.

I am one of those people who have said terrible things about those instruments, basically because I think they are total rubbish - I will never recommend them, in the same way I won't recommend the new student Buescher "trumpets" (they look like trumpets, they are called trumpets in the catalogue, but they don't play like trumpets) or the Amati instruments.