Posted by dp on December 23, 2002 at 12:41:53:
In Reply to: Ho Ho Holton II (or III?) posted by DS on December 23, 2002 at 12:20:27:
Hi Dietmar! Your relative e-bay anonymity worked to your favor, congrats on what should prove to be a good score!
My advice to your questions, have the horn shipped to you first, truthfully with the kind of investment you will make in a horn like this it'd be false economy to try to save on shipping without being VERY well-acquainted with the tuba first. Besides, you really DO want to play the thing asap, right?
I'd suggest you ask the seller to put a spot of solder on each of the bell cracks to keep them from buzzing. Then play it for a while and see how you like it!
Big Holtons are wonderful, but (truthfully) they are NOT for everybody and are far more tuba than 90% of music ensembles we play in can handle. Most community bands, for example, quickly forget how to play pianissimo when confronted with the wash of support a big Holton can provide at even quiet dynamics. If you love woodwinds they way I do ;^} that is not a good thing!
Tony reports he paid 4500 for his horn and put another 3500 into the cosmetic refurb, plus his horn didn't have the extent of patch repairs to the branches that yours does. The tuba Rick Denney just got had NO patches, so the price he paid for his is a good benchmark (albeit generously low due to the seller's non-aggressive pricing strategies) for BBflat Holton players this month. Obviously there is a WIDE spread in pricing. MY Holton is a factory CC has a 5th valve, and has amazing provenance. I turned down an offer of 12k for it, but would be surprised to see a BBflat sister horn in pristine shape sell for half that! The old Holtons ARE considered somewhat "historic"...but it is important you carefully consider what you want to do before you opt for putting 8000+ into a 30+ year old horn. After you've played it a while with the solder fixes to the bell cracks, you'll be better able to decide how important cosmetics are to you. Remember, cosmetic work is expensive! Because of this, most folks would put a patch over bell-cracks like on yours, especially given there are several patch repairs on the horn already. Obviously though had I gotten the horn, I'd have replaced the bell, with fancy engraving and fresh lacquer a new bell on an old holton would look mighty fine m'thinks! Holtons valvesets are not known for durability, the fact that yours are reported good by the e-bay seller is both good and bad, good in that they are tight and fast and have likely been refurbed, bad in that Holtons seldom can take more than one valve rebuild (IF that!) Mine has been played professionally it's whole life ... until I got it anyways ;^} ... its had one cosmetic refurb a dozen years ago, and the valves are original. I'll use spacefiller in them if I have to, simply to stave off refinishing them. Thankfully they do not need that yet. So valveset condition is an important consideration. Right now about the only thing nearly as hard as getting a new bell for one of these is getting a new valve body (manufacturer/suppliers have dried up)
The BBflat crowd will always venerate horns like yours, and be quite outspoken about it...but rest assured that if all those BBflat guys thought the horn was a deal they would have been bidding against us! Irregardless, congrats on a score! Let us know your first impressions, and more importantly, your second and third impressions!