Posted by Rick Denney on September 30, 2003 at 10:29:29:
In Reply to: Yamaha YFB-621 serial numbers posted by Rommel Cordova on September 29, 2003 at 22:41:48:
I've heard this, and I've heard that, but I don't think any of them were handmade, any more than any tubas are handmade (and they are all hand-assembled).
Mine was Yamaha's exhibition demo for the first year they were available, and it is numbered 100072 if I'm remembering correctly (I'm sure of the 72 but the position of the 1 may need a reminder). Considering that Yamaha used this one in their booth for the whole first year, it seems to me that it must have been from that first batch. Lee Hipp owned one that he bought six months or so before I bought mine, and it was playing his that led me to buy one of my own. He played the one I bought first and declared it a great horn. So, at some level, I don't really care if it is part of that first batch.
Mine certainly plays in tune and does so with a tasteful 3/4" of main slide showing. Sometimes when I'm bringing my Bb battle to the Yamaha the G on the staff will be flat, but if I have my F tuba brain in place I don't have the problem. I'm not that good and have not that much use for isntruments that require major manipulations to bring it into tune, and I play it in a quintet where being out of tune is obvious even to me.
The models older than mine that I've studied were physically identical to mine, as have been all the newer models. I don't see any better detailing to suggest a higher degree of handwork. One does not buy a Yamaha as an example of fine craftsmanship.
If it means anything, mine also has the maker's name and serial number buried on the 2nd-valve casing. There is no marking anywhere else on the instrument; neither the old screened label nor the newer engraving.
Rick "no Yamaha historian" Denney