Eclipsehornplayer

I'm sure there's a post about this somewhere; but I was unable to find it.

I had a member of the community band I play in ask me to test out a Piccolo Trumpet he bought off ebay.

He told me that he bought it on a whim not really caring weather it was a good deal or not just looking to see what it was all about.

There are absolutly no markings on this thing what so ever.

I suspect it's from India because he told me what he paid for it and it resembles some of the ones I see listed out there now.

I told him that I've never played a Picc before but would be glad to doodle around with it and give him my opinion.

It took me about 30 minutes just to get the 4th valve free. I then pulled them all out and oiled them up in the hopes of getting some sort of valve action out of them. All 4 stick and seen to be very poorly machined.

I put my Cornet mouthpiece into the receiver and tried to at least produce some sort of tone. How deplorable it was. It sounded as though I had connected the bell to my mouthpiece and just buzzed. There was no getting anything that even approached musical out of this horn.

I guess it's buyer beware; and I'm going to assume that everyone here already knew what I discovered. I just thought I'd share it just in case.

I never entertained the thought of buying one of those horns from India; now I surely wont.