Posted by Sean D. on December 06, 2002 at 15:17:45:
Season's Greetings All:
I recently came across an old Martin top action tuba with 4 valves. It has an upright bell and a main tuning slide lever. This tuba is quite large. I am having my CC worked on and I wanted to do some low playing on a big horn. This tuba happened to be available for me to use. After spending the last couple of days playing around on it, I decided I would like to find out more about it. I checked the archives and found some serial number sources, and it appears to be a late 50's or early 60's model. The horn is pretty beat up...but I really like the way it plays. The intonation seems decent and it has a nice feel to the low end and the high end. I would like to find out any information that I can. The serial number is 196196. I wonder if anyone ever uses (or at one time used) this horn in an orchestral setting? Are these horns considered good tubas? Are they at all valuable? Any help is appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Sean D.