TromboneChat

Hello dear trombone community,

I'm looking for a cheap-but-good-engouh straight small bore tenor trombone.
I saw a Blessing straight tenor with a rose brass bell that seems in good condition but I can't try it (too far away).
The price is appealing, but is the instrument good ?
On the bell is written "BLESSING Artist ELKHART-INDIANA U.S.A.".
The seller says it's from 1980. He doesn't know if it's a small bore or large bore.

Should I risk it ?

Total guess, looks like the upper model straight .525 to me... B78? B77?

Aidan's guess is as good as any. Appears to take a small-shank mouthpiece.

Small shank medium bore then ?
Not quite what I am looking for (.500-ish bore).

I was looking for a big band trombone, but I guess it could be good enough for 3rd chair and also have some use in symphonic.

Are you sure about the small shank ? Don't want a large shank.

claf wrote: ↑Fri Sep 15, 2023 11:58 am Are you sure about the small shank ? Don't want a large shank.

Just a guess from the photo.

Why not ask the seller? (Although the placement of the mouthpiece in the bell receiver is not a good sign!) Perhaps the seller could tell you what is engraved on the mouthpiece. (My guess is that it's a Bach 6½AL.)

In general, these are pretty good trombones. And if you get it at a bargain price ...

Yeah, the seller know about the trombone as much as where to put the mouthpiece...
The mouthpiece is a 6-1/2AL, which doesn't help to determine the shank size...

The price is 250€, which is lower than the Yamaha 354 I'm usually looking for (400-600€).

See if you can get them to measure the bell diameter; that will at least narrow the field a bit.

A good picture of the mouthpiece by itself should allow someone to judge small vs. large shank, particularly on a Bach 'piece.

I think the bell looks more like the pure copper (like the Conn "Coprion") models rather than rose brass. It doesn't help with the question of the bore size as Blessing did copper bells on all sizes, I think.

Cheers

Stewbones43

Mouthpiece seems to be small shank, bell seems to be 8".
I'll give it a try.

I think the older Blessing horns were under rated. I had a Artist model 500 bore and an 88 with F attachment that I used in dance bans and community band. Used a Yamaha 48 with both of them small shank/large shank respectively.

Horn received today (it was very fast).

The case smell like something stored in the attic for a long period of time.
The instrument is very clean, a few lacquer dings and one very small dent in the bell, but really nothing much.
Slide was not lubricated for a veeeeeeryyyyyyy long time, I put like a quarter of my yamaha lube bottle and it's still noisy and a little bit slow but it should be good after a nice cleaning.
Tuning slide is moving but slowly, need some cleaning/lubrication.
It is small shank.
2 "bad" things : the little plastic thing at the end of the slide and the slide stop nut are missing, I guess it can be easily replaced.

Couldn't find any model number on it, someone know where it is supposed to be on Blessing trombone ?
I think it's probably a B148 (0.500 bore) or B5 (0.508 bore), but it blows really small compared to what I know (0.562 bass trombone, I know...) so I don't think it's a B7 (0.525 bore).

The bell could be pure copper, I'm not sure but it's really coppery-colored.

I seem to remember other Blessing horns having Red Brass bells, or maybe even Copper. They were nice horns, but as time went on were unfortunately no longer able to compete, like so many of the famous brands of the 20th century.

It's most certainly not as good as a Yamaha 354, but I wanted a cheap horn that does trombone sounds.
So far, my objectives are met.

At one time I had a Blessing B88 silver and a Blessing artist both Elkhart made.
I'm pretty sure the artist was .500 bore.
Used a Yamaha 48 with it and it sounded great.

Btw, I think the model number would be stamped on the bell brace.

For future reference, the model number isn't stamped anywhere but I bought a digital caliper and measured the bore as .508.
According to this document, it should be a model B5.