I never liked these.
The only good thing about these was their super sturdy cases, but one's case is trashed (yet super extra heavy even though super squishy, because it's full of very large and wide interior metal flanges - where someone tried to save it), which indicates a hell of a past effort (both in the destruction and the attempted salvation of it) by someone and then someone else.
After getting everything put back where it's supposed to be (almost everything was out of place or else smashed) the thing plays about 30 cents sharp (likely due to my test mouthpiece not having enough exterior mass), and about 10 cents sharp with the slide pulled out to the brink.
Forget bringing the mouth pipe back from the dead....
Check out the main tuning slide.
I had to pull the top outside tube down more than 1/4 of an inch and the lower long one down about 3/16 of an inch in order to (once I got the slide itself back in alignment) make that slide work nicely, and I managed to pull everything that was all twisted around back where it belonged without breaking nor unsoldering any of those delicate (read: crappy) braces.
I charged $250, but I got it done quick enough to make reasonable (roughly auto repair shop rates) money per hour.
I also sold them this ancient case (completely holding together and with an intact cortex), which originally held a chrome-plated two valve key of G drum corps bugle.
This is for one of our newest word-of-mouth school system customers. They're the better part of two hours away... roughly our limit, unless people bring stuff to us. They're east of Tupelo, Mississippi only about 10 to 15 minutes away from Alabama (the high school campus is within sight of Interstate 22).
The band director is being nice and he's going to go ahead and pay me - even though I won't be able to bring it back to him until towards the end of April... (I'm heading over that way to play a John Williams pops concert around that time, and I'm combining trips.)
If you've ever messed with one of these, they feature valve guides quite similar to those found on short-action sousaphones, except it's not short action - so there was no point in making the guides that way (??). Rather than sturdy, these guides are made of nylon for the disc with the tooth on it and with a flimsy little brass stick embedded in the bottom side of the nylon disc. They also have really goofy bumpers underneath the nylon which I had to hand make in order to replace the rock hard ones which were OEM and sounded like no bumper felts at all.
before pictures:
Just imagine an amorphous version of this.
bloke "If Trump is really sincere - regards to his goal to render Iran absolutely helpless and impotent, he should drop thousands of these by drone or parachute outside the front doors of all of the secondary schools there."
