Quote:
Originally Posted by tom turner  Hey folks,
Post photos of your favoritie vintage trumpets and cornets below. Let's see what cha got! 
Tom |
THIS THREAD is the reason I signed up for this forum. It's cool!
I recently discovered that I like really old Holton horns. So far I've collected two trombones (and some "parts bones"), two cornets, and one trumpet.
This one is a raw brass cornet from 1908. It was in pretty sad shape when I got it, but I took it to a shop and told them "do absolutely as little as possible." They straightened the dents and the lead pipe, lapped the valves, freed up the slides (ALL of them were stuck), and put in new water key thingies (not corks). One brace had to be resoldered. They also ran it through a bath of some type (but I specifically asked them NOT to dunk it in acid).
At some point in its life it has had a "valve job," because the valves aren't copper. It also appears to have the wrong first valve slide, and I suspect it originally had a bunch of different slides and they just got mixed up. One valve bottom cap isn't the same as the other two, and doesn't have the serial number in it.
The finish is amazing. I've never had a raw brass instrument before, and quite frankly I don't understand why it looks so good. It looked just this good when I got it, and I assume it was in an attic for a very, very long time.
The horn plays GREAT. It is amazingly in-tune with itself, despite the apparently "wrong" first valve slide. It has an authentic era-correct mouthpiece, and the tone is AWESOME. It almost sounds like a flugelhorn (except it's in tune with itself).
Thanks for the cool thread!
Wayne.
Oklahoma City (cultural center of the Universe)
