josueffn

Josue Castillo from Mn. Just glad to have a place to ask like minded questions. For now, I have run across a trumpet- Benal Henton knecht. anyone know if this is a collector or worth buying and restoring. Seems to have stuck valves and slides so it would be a total refinish job. Thanks.

screamingmorris

I did a Google search:

"I thought I would take this opportunity to ask a question
about a trumpet I have. It is a 'Benal' from a music company called Henton Knecht. Here is what I know about it so far.
Ben Henton and Albert Knecht used to play in John Sousa's Band in thelate 1800's early 1900's, they were both Saxophone player's.
They also had a music store in the Harrisburg, PA area.
The serial number is 012815 , I have been told by a gentleman in PA who used to own a music store from the 20's till the 80's that it would navebeen made around the 10's to 20's.
The company that actually made the trumpet (Conn I believe) sold them to Henton and Knecht and was stamped with the Benal logo after manufacture."
[TPIN] Benal Trumpet, possibly a C# trumpet??

Also see:
Specifications on instrument #

If "Mn" means "Minnesota", I lived in Minneapolis in the early 1980's.
When I returned for a visit in the late 1990's I hardly recognized the place it had changed so much.

- Morris

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josueffn

I also have my eye on a Benal Henton Knecht trumpet.... it's at a goodwill store and they want $149 for it. Is it worth that? The 2 valves are totally stuck as are all the slides. One dent in bell . Case included. Let me know if it's worth picking up and paying to get it refinished. It seems a bit smaller than a regular trumpet. Sincerely, Josue' Castillo

screamingmorris

What one person will pay for a particular trumpet is not what another person would pay for the same trumpet because "value" of a trumpet is in the eye of the beholder.

I think that price of $149 is too much for a very old "stencil", a low-priced trumpet made by one company so that another company can stamp its name on it.

Even if the trumpet was made by Conn, which is just speculation, that would make it the equivalent of the Wurlitzer and the Cavalier and other instruments that Conn made for such companies in the early 1900's, and I never see them sell for nearly that much on eBay.
Conn did not always use the same standards in materials and workmanship in its stencils for other companies as it did for its own Conn instruments since Conn was being hired to produce *low-priced* stencils that cost less than its own Conn instruments.

See what Conn Loyalist said about one particular inferior stencil at
The Conn Loyalist

And remember that the trumpet you are considering might not have been made by Conn at all.
It might have been made by some other company that we have never heard of.

On the other hand, if you play it and like it a lot, and you know that you will never see another one like it for sale in your lifetime, it might be worth that much to you even though many other people would not pay that much.
But if the valves are worn so that they leak air and there is not decent compression, I greatly doubt that you would want to spend a few hundered dollars on it having the valves re-plated to make it playable again.
But you said that the valves are stuck so that you cannot test-play it to see if the valves work OK...

For comparison, look at
cornet conn victor - eBay (item 320238996329 end time Apr-16-08 17:08:38 PDT)
That is a professional-level 1960's Conn 5A cornet that plays beautifully, with beautiful tone, needs no repair at all, and I was shocked when it sold for only $153.51.
So there are fine ready-to-play instruments that can be bought for $150.


EDIT:

If you tell me what kind of trumpet you are looking for and in what price range, I could make suggestions regarding specific ones that I know are for sale.
But I would notify you about those specific trumpets for sale through a Trumpet Master private message (do you know how to use the private message system here?).
Because if I tell you about specific trumpets in a public post here, there is a chance that someone else will see the public post here and buy the trumpet before you can.
But I and other posters here could make public recommendations regarding makes and models of trumpets without publicly pointing you to specific ones that are for sale.

- Morris