Ann Arbor: Newer Style King 2341

[hrender]

Good price.

https://musicgoround.com/locations/ann- ... /King-2341

[arpthark]

Sold!

[York-aholic]

Yeah, I’d say $2,799 was a pretty good price…

[bort2.0]

They wanted that GONE.

[sugawi]

Available again.

[catgrowlB]

Imo, that's what those new-style King 2341 tubas in good/used condition should go for -- not $4k or $5k.

Because the older/tall/detachable-bell King 2341 tubas in good/used condition usually sell for $2k - $3k, and they are built better than the new-style ones.

There are other good 4/4, 4-valve BBb tubas that are built much better than the new-style King 2341 tubas that also sell for around the same $2k - $3k price range in good/used condition.

[tofu]

You have to wonder with that far so below market price if this one had poor slide alignment or valve issues which some of these suffer from. I didn’t see any in depth description of the horn. You’d assume a Music Store wouldn’t sell at such a low price to current market value just to turn it immediately.

[jose the tuba player]

You have to wonder with that far so below market price if this one had poor slide alignment or valve issues which some of these suffer from. I didn’t see any in depth description of the horn. You’d assume a Music Store wouldn’t sell at such a low price to current market value just to turn it immediately.

I dont see the price as a red flag, I think there is a market correction due to a bad economy, tubas are very much a commodity. I purchased an upright cimbasso and a miraphone 183 recently for very reasonable prices. I'm going to pick up another tuba on my road trip to pick up my cimbasso. It's a good market for buyers if you can afford it.

Another issue is that I see most shops moving away from carrying the major brands in favor of their own stencil line from China.

[tofu]

You have to wonder with that far so below market price if this one had poor slide alignment or valve issues which some of these suffer from. I didn’t see any in depth description of the horn. You’d assume a Music Store wouldn’t sell at such a low price to current market value just to turn it immediately.

I dont see the price as a red flag, I think there is a market correction due to a bad economy, tubas are very much a commodity. I purchased an upright cimbasso and a miraphone 183 recently for very reasonable prices. I'm going to pick up another tuba on my road trip to pick up my cimbasso. It's a good market for buyers if you can afford it.

Another issue is that I see most shops moving away from carrying the major brands in favor of their own stencil line from China.

Actually, if anything the current situation with tariffs has driven supply down and prices significantly higher. To the point where the Eastman and much lessor Chinese copies are so much higher now that they approach the domestic prices and German prices. People are also learning you take a serious price hit at resale for most stencils - 15 years from now nobody is going to know what the heck Carls Music Shop is/was or where in China the tuba came from.

So in the current economic climate people are even less likely to pay up for a no name Chinese stencil that will take a extra large hit on resale than for a known established brand. That King now goes for over 10K retail. That price of $2750 is a steal if the horn doesn’t have a problem. Music shops aren’t stupid and the fact that someone said the horn was sold and then back on the market would seem to indicate that a buyer backed out - that happens a lot when someone gets there & tries the horn -then understands out “why so cheap”.

Sure extra large bargains can occasionally be had, but not ones that large from a store in the music business. It’s not hard for them to google and find out they had priced that horn anywhere from a 45% discount at an average $5000 market price to a 31.5% discount at the low end $4000 market avg. price. This is a popular model amongst HS, College and amateur players and even pros using it for jazz. Schools buy a lot of them including used - so even other music stores would be buyers at such a low to market price to resell - such high demand drives used prices higher - unless again major valve or slide alignment problems - which a reseller would understand would be too expensive to fix / flip & turn a profit sizable enough to warrant the effort/time/risk involved.

Your horn you used as an example - a 183 - was never a popular horn, nor a popular key Eb and a horn that most examples had major tuning issues. So demand is low on a hard to move horn which explains they can be had at very reasonable prices. I looked at one with case -in excellent like new condition for $1300. It was a dog out of tune with itself. Not worth even the cheap price for the amount of cost to ‘try” to. fix. Thus explaining the cheap price.

[arpthark]

This is now sold to a friend in Michigan. According to the store, the horn previously didn’t sell because someone bought it online and then didn’t want to pay shipping and tried to make the store eat the shipping cost. By all accounts this is a very nice playing example of this model that was owned by an adult gigging pro, so no scholastic damage. Apparently, this music-go-round location is staffed by mostly Guitar Center-type folks who didn’t know anything about tubas, so they were pretty clueless about the value of this one. Good deal.

[bort2.0]

Somehow, I've never had a chance to try one of these.

20+ years ago, I considered buying one right after college, because I simply needed to buy a tuba for myself. But, since I had played (a school owned) CC tuba through college, I kind of stayed in that lane.

The only time I've seen one in use was a TubaChristmas around the same time period. The guy sounded great on it, and I couldn't tell from across the room what it was... And I was kind of surprised when he said it was a new King 2341.

IIRC, the brand-new price back then was close to $3500. I remember Dave Fedderly advertising the last of one batch as "You'll never see this price again."

[arpthark]

I agree. I see way, way more old style removable bell 1241s and 2341s (and 1240s) around here. I only encountered the new 2341 in high school, seeing other bands use them (my band owned Cerveny 681 and 686s). I was kind of enamored by the piston valves.

My bandmate has a 2341 with removable 22” upright bell, Dillon-ified slides and an AGR. Nice tuba. I cleaned about a pound of green gunk out of it a couple months ago. Now, nicer tuba!

[bort2.0]

A pound of green gunk -- NASTY!

For that matter, I've only encountered a few old 2341's or 1241's.

One was a player in a community band from long ago (sounded pretty good). Another was at a music store, and I was really surprised at how much sound it would put out, and how agreeable it was to how I played it (given the small bore). Especially in the low range.