Zaraskabat

Preston, that was a joke, the 20 bucks comment. I have been watching the old silvertones sell on ebay for a while and they do tend to bring good prices. In fact I recently saw someone sell just the bell alone from a trumpet for more than I paid for some of my horns. The tarnished bell and the stuck slides are not a problem, the bell I think is silver on those, not plated brass, and should polish up very nicely. A shop can get the slides unstuck rather inexpensively. The bent leadpipe might be more costly but still not all that bad. What would get pricey is the valves. If you only paid 35 bucks for it, man, you got a deal in my opinion. You can see some good examples of the old King Silvertones being auctioned on Ebay, I happen to think they were some of the prettiest horns made, and some of the best sounding so I personally would have no hesitation spending good money restoring one, especially if I only paid 35 bucks for it in the first place.

I am a little confused with your initial post, is this a horn you just got and it is your first, or have you had it a long time? Because if you are new at owning a vintage horn, you might want to research a little before you do anything to it, for example if it needs to be buffed be very careful about who does the work, it is easy to remove too much of the metal, especially around the engraving. And the laquered part, you need to really think about why you would have anything done to that finish if you think it needs to be done, and what it will do to the value of the horn.

To get an idea what this horn is worth, just start searching for one as if you were looking to buy one. Go searching on ebay, check the classified ads here and on other trumpet forums, google it, I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

Ken