TromboneChat

Hello,

Any thoughts on what this might be?
Bell section simply says “Liberty Made in Elkhart Ind. USA”
Counterweight looks like a globe showing North America
Number stamped on tuning slide is “124”

Slide mates up fine, it has the number “8243”

https://ibb.co/n1TWWv8
https://ibb.co/r2DD3kL
https://ibb.co/d75pn0V

Thanks for any help!

It is most probably a Conn stencil sold by companies like Jenkins Music. Are the slide stockings one piece or soldered on?

An early (1930's ?) Liberty trombone made by King; later morphed into the Liberty 2B, then just 2B.
The Liberty horn has been discussed here in the past.
Use a Google search for "liberty trombone" for a better search of this forum than the local search function delivers.

CharlieB wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 5:30 pm An early (1930's ?) Liberty trombone made by King; later morphed into the Liberty 2B, then just 2B.
The Liberty horn has been discussed here in the past.
Use a Google search for "liberty trombone" for a better search of this forum than the local search function delivers.

But a Liberty like you describe would more likely than not say something along the lines of: "Made by the H.N. White company, Cleveland, OH" or such. This is not from the same factory, let alone state.

I'm leaning Conn (maybe Beuscher?) like @OneTon.

Compare it to this Pan American trombone on eBay.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/293426570282
In particular, take look at the counterweights. I'd say that's pretty conclusive.

wkumax wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 1:01 pm Counterweight looks like a globe showing North America

South America, too!

JohnL wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 7:02 pm Compare it to this Pan American trombone on eBay.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/293426570282

The Western Hemisphere is engraved on the bell too, so I'm pretty confident the counterweight belongs with the horn.

JohnL wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 7:02 pm Compare it to this Pan American trombone on eBay.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/293426570282
In particular, take look at the counterweights.
IMG-9887.jpg
s-l1600.jpg

I'd say that's pretty conclusive.

Thanks, this looks to be very close to what I’ve got. Bell engraving is entirely different but braces, counterweight, curved thumb rest … all looks identical.

Pan-American (adjective): of, relating to, or involving the independent republics of North and South America

i.e. Western Hemisphere. As illustrated on the counterweight.

Note soldered stockings in eBay photo. This is not a recently-made trombone.

Were there multiple brass instrument factories in Elkhart, Indiana in the 1920s-1930s?
Which one made "Pan American" trombones?

Posaunus wrote: ↑Mon May 27, 2024 9:09 pmWhich one made "Pan American" trombones?

Pan-American was a subsidiary of Conn; essentially it was the brand they used for what we would consider student models today.

What I have understood, probably from this site, was in the bad old days all instruments made by reputable manufacturers were professional instruments. This is not to say that there no junk manufacturers building crap that tended to emulate elephants passing gas. Then there was a transition period that Conn was a big part of as it lobbied to fund early age music education initiatives, which then created a demand for higher volume and less expensive instruments. This Liberty looks like an earlier professional stencil instrument with a Pan American counter weight that would have been built under the same roof as Conn. or it could be a Conn stencil horn that someone added a Pan American counter weight to improve balance, and because it fit.

Pan-American was established specifically to produce instruments that could be sold at a price point lower than those sold under the Conn name. I'm not entirely clear on its exact relationship with Conn; it was founded by Carl Greenleaf, who was the president of C. G. Conn at the time, and it was officially located in a facility owned by Conn (though not the main Conn factory), but it seems to have been (on paper, at least) a separate company. Was Pan-American production separate from Conn production? Or were they produced together? Or was it somewhere in between - perhaps components made by Conn, but assembled in a separate Pan-American facility? I don't know.

In addition to their namesake brand, Pan-American also produced the Cavalier and Continental Colonial lines, as well as stencils and "jobber" line models.
https://cderksen.home.xs4all.nl/PanAmHModels.html

There's stories that Pan-American used components (or even entire instruments) that didn't pass muster at Conn, though I tend to discount that.