The (occasional) joys of eBay gambling/buying blind
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2018 6:08 pm
So I thought earlier this summer to start this thread but then completely forgot. Buying horns on eBay (and buying blind in general) can lead to disappointment, it can also lead to great surprises. The idea of this thread is to share stories or info about the particularly good (or particularly horrible) horns we score on eBay or buy blind, or our experience in general doing that.
My experience thus far : I've bought a few horns on eBay and other reselling sites, some were dogs, some were okay, and some were absolutely superb right off the bat (my first horn, which I still own but don't use much anymore, turned out to be one of the best 42s I've tried, got improved later on with various mods, and its slide gets complimented for its smootheness and fast action by everyone who tries it).
Now the horn that reminded me about this idea of a thread : last June I bought a 19th century Courtois for 180€ off of eBay.fr - it caught my attention notably because it came with a mouthpiece and a case, both likely contemporary.
After getting more pictures from the seller, I was on the fence. The inner slide handbrace was completely severed from the lower tube and there were a few nasty dents on the tuning bow. On the other hand, the inner tubes seemed remarkably straight, with no corrosion or dents, really a promising condition given its age (the engraving on the bell dates it sometime between 1889 and 1895). I took a gamble. There were a few other problems once it arrived. The tuning slide was stuck, and there was a fingernail-sized spot on one of the outer tubes, just past the sleeve, where the metal was literally paper-thin and you could feel it crackle and give under your finger.
It just came back from a week at Musikhaus Gilhaus in Freiburg, and I couldn't commend their work more. They rebuilt and carefully aligned the slide as good as was possible, made a long bottom sleeve to replace the original shorter one and cover/reinforce the weak spot, pulled the tuning slide, took the dents out and polished the whole instrument. I now have a very nice, great sounding romantic French trombone in good playable condition, for less than 400€ total!
It is all brass, with soldered-on stockings. It has a tiny bell (a bit below 7") and bore (somewhere around .460"), but it can actually sound really big. It's got amazing projection and gives a lot of feedback (the metal is quite thin). I've never had this much fun playing Bolero before, and playing a few bits of Guilmant, Barat, Stojowski was a revelation. These pieces have tons of character on this horn. It came with an unmarked, raw brass, typical 19th century French mouthpiece : absolutely tiny cup diameter by modern standards, very funneled, almost completely conical cup. I also use another mouthpiece with it (also Courtois, and contemporary) which I suspect is originally for baritone saxhorn, although it might also be for bass trombone.
Interestingly, the tuning slide is extra long - all the way in, the horn is at A=450 and all the way out it's at A=430 (give or take a few Hertz depending on the mouthpiece). Bell past 4th position at the higher pitch (like earlier trombones), 3rd position when at 430; and at 440, 4th position is pretty much exactly at the bell rim.
Other interesting features : the waterkey, typical for that time, and more importantly, the bell is 2 parts, with a Y seam (meaning it's not a flare and a stem - the main sheet goes all the way to the edge, but not all the way around, and is completed with a triangular piece of brass). Unfortunately I can't get a clear picture of that.
My experience thus far : I've bought a few horns on eBay and other reselling sites, some were dogs, some were okay, and some were absolutely superb right off the bat (my first horn, which I still own but don't use much anymore, turned out to be one of the best 42s I've tried, got improved later on with various mods, and its slide gets complimented for its smootheness and fast action by everyone who tries it).
Now the horn that reminded me about this idea of a thread : last June I bought a 19th century Courtois for 180€ off of eBay.fr - it caught my attention notably because it came with a mouthpiece and a case, both likely contemporary.
After getting more pictures from the seller, I was on the fence. The inner slide handbrace was completely severed from the lower tube and there were a few nasty dents on the tuning bow. On the other hand, the inner tubes seemed remarkably straight, with no corrosion or dents, really a promising condition given its age (the engraving on the bell dates it sometime between 1889 and 1895). I took a gamble. There were a few other problems once it arrived. The tuning slide was stuck, and there was a fingernail-sized spot on one of the outer tubes, just past the sleeve, where the metal was literally paper-thin and you could feel it crackle and give under your finger.
It just came back from a week at Musikhaus Gilhaus in Freiburg, and I couldn't commend their work more. They rebuilt and carefully aligned the slide as good as was possible, made a long bottom sleeve to replace the original shorter one and cover/reinforce the weak spot, pulled the tuning slide, took the dents out and polished the whole instrument. I now have a very nice, great sounding romantic French trombone in good playable condition, for less than 400€ total!
It is all brass, with soldered-on stockings. It has a tiny bell (a bit below 7") and bore (somewhere around .460"), but it can actually sound really big. It's got amazing projection and gives a lot of feedback (the metal is quite thin). I've never had this much fun playing Bolero before, and playing a few bits of Guilmant, Barat, Stojowski was a revelation. These pieces have tons of character on this horn. It came with an unmarked, raw brass, typical 19th century French mouthpiece : absolutely tiny cup diameter by modern standards, very funneled, almost completely conical cup. I also use another mouthpiece with it (also Courtois, and contemporary) which I suspect is originally for baritone saxhorn, although it might also be for bass trombone.
Interestingly, the tuning slide is extra long - all the way in, the horn is at A=450 and all the way out it's at A=430 (give or take a few Hertz depending on the mouthpiece). Bell past 4th position at the higher pitch (like earlier trombones), 3rd position when at 430; and at 440, 4th position is pretty much exactly at the bell rim.
Other interesting features : the waterkey, typical for that time, and more importantly, the bell is 2 parts, with a Y seam (meaning it's not a flare and a stem - the main sheet goes all the way to the edge, but not all the way around, and is completed with a triangular piece of brass). Unfortunately I can't get a clear picture of that.
