F for less than that price of my kidneys

[prodigal]

Hello friends,

Well, now that I have a sweet 186 CC, it kinda looks lonely without a mate. So, hopefully not too far down the road, I'd like God (and spouse-harder than God) willing to pick up a cute little F to make a happy marriage of tubas going towards the end of my teaching days.

The main purpose is craps and giggles and to just ENJOY playing solo rep, with Tuba Christmas, and I'm sorry, the second movement of RVW is one of my favorite love songs, even Mrs. Prodigal likes it!

So...

The problem is that I started on the best, a sweet old 5 valve, small bore Symphonie that dang near played itself. I NEVER dreaded practicing it like my TE-186 CC, I couldn't wait for the day to be relatively over and hit the practice room for a few hours of me (practice) time.

I know there are lots of new F tubas on the marketplace, and the JBL and 56AFT look SWEET, but there are easier, more humane ways to commit suicide.

I'm seeing the going price for Symphonies and older PT10s-15s is between 5-7K with a gig bag. Are there any less pricey, decent, alternatives?

[bloke]

Over the past 4 or 5 years, dozens of trillions of dollars - which represent no goods nor services - have been printed out of thin air. This is caused everything to cost approximately double, as all of us have noticed.
Sure, some stuff has only gone up 50% or 75%, but a whole bunch of stuff has gone up 100%
When you're looking at $5000 to $7,000, you're only really looking at $3,000 to $5,000 from a few years ago (and no: the prices of tubas haven't soared quite as much as other things, because tubas are not essentials). Just because most of us don't generate any more income than we did four or five years ago... well that still doesn't change the fact that the money is worth half as much.
Why was this done to us?
I believe most of us know, but we're not supposed to talk about that stuff here.

[prodigal]

When I bought my first 186, it was $4500 delivered with a Reunion Blues gig bag to school in February of 1998. Gas was about $1/gal for regular. 110 leaded was $2.15 a gallon.

Looking at a new one (even though I'm not sure that I'd like the short 5th valve now) they are upwards of $12k. Just passed the cheapest local gas station, gas was $3.17/gal for regular. About $14/gal. for 110 Sunoco Standard.

So, it looks like the actual cost per tuba is about the same in terms of pain of cost. (I can't remember the fancy financial term for this right now).

I sold that 186 for about 150% what I paid for it. My PT-15 I bought for $3K in 2003, and sold it for the same five years later, but inflation wasn't as bad.

I started teaching 22 years ago at $33k, gas was about $1/gal. Now, I haven't tripled that yet, and gas is over $3/gal....

I was hoping to get in on the 180 auction on Ebay before it disappeared, or to run up to Dillon to try out the little Lidl, but it 'twas not to be.

[bloke]

Ever since the Federal Reserve was established, [truth that triggers people, so I won't say it]

Anyway, inflation is an intentional tax, and it continues to grow in speed so as to now be just about our largest tax.

Being older, I bought a 186 for about 1800 bucks brand new. If it had been a five valve it might have cost me $2,000 or $2,100, but it wasn't. I bought it in 1974. A couple of years before that, there was a gas station two blocks from my house that sold 91 octane gas (at that time: the lowest octane offered) for 20 cents a gallon. Back then, Miraphone tubas were handmade. Of course, a tremendous amount of "hand work" goes into making them today, but there's far more automation involved.
They are much more similar from one to the next today, but... and never mind.

As a college freshman (and I began taking summer semester courses a week after graduating from high school) I worked at Sears loading trucks. They had just bumped up the wages to over $2, and the other guys who loaded the trucks looked askance at me because I walked in with the higher wage and they had been working at the lower wage for at least two or three years, and I was only a temporary college boy... So think about it: even if I had not spent a nickel of that Sears money, lived with my parents, eating their food, driven my mother's car, and saved all the after taxes money and work there 40 hours a week and not gone to college or anything...
... It would have taken me just about until the time the college spring semester would have ended to have earned enough money at Sears loading trucks to buy a new five valve 186.

Today, a lot of entry level jobs around here pay about $13 an hour, and they often only let people work about 29 hours a week maximum.
Playing around with my calculator, it looks like it would take a few more weeks today -:working at an entry level job - to buy a brand new 5 valve 186, and the only reason it would take a few more weeks is because of the fact that employers tend to only hire entry level people to work 29 hours a week, rather than 40.

Again, musical instruments' prices have not inflated as much as have things that are necessities, and which are purchased regularly if not weekly.

[gocsick]

Median US household income in 1970 - $8,730 CPI adjusted for inflation 3.9% annual average $68,000–70,000 depending on inflation calculator used
Median household income 2023 -$80,600

Of course for most households that $80K represents 2 incomes where in 1970 it was 1.. but that is an entirely different conversation

Price of Miraphone 186 in 1970 $1,400–1,600 (https://brassandpipes.wordpress.com/page/3/)
Price of Miraphone 186 in 2024 $10,000

That gives 17.2% of household income for a new 186 in 1970 and 12.5% for a new one today. Ho on paper the real cost for tubas is cheaper now than 50 years ago.... Now to @blokes point .... Real income is different because of all the things that have grown much faster than inflation (housing 180% increase, heathcare 250% increase, college >1000% increase, childcare 300% increase) ....

Looking at published discretionary income data

| | **1970** | **2025 (est.)**
| --------------------------------- | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------
| **Median Household Income** | \$8,734 (nominal) | $80,000 (nominal)
| **Disposable Income (after tax)** | ≈ \$7,300 (≈16% tax rate) | $65,000 (≈18–20% tax rate)
| **Essential Spending** | ≈ \$4,500 (housing, food, etc.). | $55,000 (housing, food, etc.)
| **Discretionary Income** | $2,800. | $10,000**
| % of Gross as Discretionary | 32% | 12.5%

So the apparent cost... a new Miraphone 186 was approximately half, 53%, of discretionary household income in 1970 ..... but 100% of median discretionary income today... So even though tubas are cheaper on paper the hit to the budget is about 2X what it was. For real people instruments are much less affordable now than they were 50 years ago.

I am sure Bloke and I would radically disagree on the true causes, and remedies, of the financial status of the world today... but I think we can all agree that the cost of living is just too damn high.

[Mary Ann]

I had to take a class in macroeconomics when in engineering school. One facet was a computer program we had to play with, and I don't remember anything about it except that the teacher said, afterwards, that the only way you could get the program to work was if there was constant inflation, because that was how economics actually worked.

I was conversing with a friend last night who was rhapsodizing about all the advancements coming down the pike, that will (they said) extend lifespan by 20 years. He is also an avid fan of AI and taking a course in it. And he's 83. I am quite the opposite in what I would like to see; I'd like to see all food sources be local chemical-free regenerative agriculture to restore the soil (Read Dirt to Soil and it will tell you how,) I'd like to see smaller communities that are self-sustaining. I'd like to see health care that is a complete turn-round from the drug-and-cut propaganda that almost everyone has fallen for (most of it IS terrain.) I'd like to see people quit breeding like bunnies, because bunnies have coyotes to eat the extras, and humans don't. As far as music goes -- it would be nice if those small communities had musical opportunities that I liked, but I would give that up for the rest of my fantasy world.

Probably we need two different planets to live on.

[prodigal]

"I am quite the opposite in what I would like to see; I'd like to see all food sources be local chemical-free regenerative agriculture to restore the soil (Read Dirt to Soil and it will tell you how,) I'd like to see smaller communities that are self-sustaining."

I fully agree and that's why we have our tiny farm. 6.75 acres of divided pastures and hay to feed our goats (pets) and sheep (meat) and steers (resting the fields from them this year, and calves have gone from $50 to $500 locally for leftover Holstein bullocks, the byproduct of the dairy industry here. The chick-fil-a cows aren't just cute, most Hostein steers end up at burger joints..

"I'd like to see health care that is a complete turn-round from the drug-and-cut propaganda that almost everyone has fallen for (most of it IS terrain.) I'd like to see people quit breeding like bunnies, because bunnies have coyotes to eat the extras, and humans don't."

I disagree with you on this, as the world is undergoing a RAPID depopulation per capita. There aren't enough young people coming to compensate for the rapidly aging populations of the world. But too many people are generally regulated with total wars.

[bloke]

I know that there are people who will look at the flooded supply of fiat money and say that's not the cause of devaluing of that fiat money, and I'm just not going to enter into a discussion with them. (I have colleagues - typically artist and academic types - who are of the belief that suddenly throwing twice as much paper money out there will not cause it to be worth half as much, and experience tells me that there's no convincing them otherwise.) To them, things that seem obvious to me do not seem obvious to them, and there's no convincing me and there's no convincing them.
I really can't even talk about the weather with them anymore, can I?

Anyway, if you want a cheap F tuba you can do a couple of things: You can lower your standards, or you can search the internet every hour of every day and jump in your car and snatch some incredible deal before anyone else does.

It seems to me that I'd rather play stuff up above the staff and towards the top of the staff on a really good old 186 than on a bad F tuba.

[1 Ton Tommy]

A major cause of the general price increase that isn't caused by more money chasing same goods is consolidation: There are fewer grocery chains/stores; fewer drug stores; fewer saw shops; tire stores; music stores; independent instrument manufacturers; and on and on. The effect of big-box stores on downtowns across America have been studied adnauseum.

Meanwhile working people's wages (exempting the tech workers from national median) have not kept pace. Where I live the cost of housing has been the major choke point and driven service workers and trades people out of town. They now have to commute about 40 miles over a mountain pass. Professional-class people began moving in during covid and didn't look back as they telecommute to wherever. That may change with the Return to Office mandate from Big Tech. But that mandate had made bad Seattle traffic manifestly worse tending to drive anyone not mandated into our picturesque area.

The influx of educated people has its benefits. There are more small-group music venues and the tip jars are full but nobody's making a hundred bucks a gig. The local symphony would put on more concerts but that requires more revenue, which is nearly all donations of one sort or another and none of the musicians gets paid. In fact we chip in dues of $35/mo. to pay the conductor.

The arts in America haven't been well supported during my lifetime and I can remember playing more than 60 years ago. Professional level skills can't be maintained long term without somebody paying the piper. After you graduate from Oberlin,or Eastman or Julliard or Cornish, then what? Busking? Playing for tips and a % of beer sales at the pub? Maybe I'm missing something from being old and out of touch but it doesn't seem to me that there's enough opportunity to monetize TikTok or YouTube to support professional musicians. The possible exception might be Tuba Skinny who have parleyed NOLA busking into international tours with help from skilled fans videoing them but even at that they aren't living high. Shea Cohen is still playing the Yamaha cornet giver her by her grandfather; though, in one recent video she was sporting new lace-up boots and Todd's old,old bicycle leans up against the parking meter in most Royal St. videos. He's playing an old Conn 1240? and you can't buy a new one even if you want to because Conn, Selmer and who knows who else have been consolidated into one company.

The cost of a new Mirafone (or in my case Eb Wilson) often comes out of a retirement account. In quite a few cases our orchestra's instruments were inherited or in a few cases bought when someone had a salaried chair, others bought for college and kept. What does that say for the next generation?

[Stryk]

All I know is that in 1990, I could write a check from my checking account for a new Mirafone - I can't do that today. Additionally, this has been greatly exacerbated over the past 4 years.

[daktx2]

To drag this back on topic, if you're looking under 5k for an F tuba, even the higher quality Chinese made instruments like Eastman or JP are usually out of reach (occasionally one might pop up used barely under the 5k mark).

I can't think of any options outside of Jinbao/Mackbrass/Wessex copies, which come with occasional workmanship issues, or a used Cerveny / Lidl. I think there's there's a Cerveney on the for sale board a few pages back that's priced well below 5k.The Cerveneys are a very different blow than an Symphonie, much smaller, but are generally alright intonation wise and make a nice sound. I've also seen the occasional older MW 45 show up under 4k, but I am pretty unfamiliar with these horns, and they're much less commonly listed for sale.

You could also expand your basstuba search and try to find an Eb tuba, which more frequently show up in this range. I sold a Yamaha 321/381 well below 5k a while back. Happy hunting!

[arpthark]

There are options if you hunt the used market. Last year I sold a Wessex F tuba that was a PT-10 (or maybe PT-15) copy for something like $2.5k.

About six years ago now I bought and sold a Meinl-Weston 46 (six valve) F tuba for about $3k. I think there is now one of these listed on FB in Colorado for around $4.5k, which is probably fair considering inflation.

I just saw a John Packer PT-15 copy listed for sale on FB for ~$4.5k.

There is a Cerveny 4v F tuba for sale on FB for $2k. Obviously, fewer valves means less expensive, at the expense of some utility.

I listed in the Offsite Deals/Ads section a 5v Cerveny 3/4-sized F tuba on FB marketplace. These horns pack a punch and belie their size.

I echo @daktx2 that a decent Eb tuba is generally significantly less expensive than a decent F tuba. You can generally find the older 15" bell Besson 4v compensating Eb for at or under $3k, but for these older horns there's always the big question of valves, valves, valves. I really lucked out this past winter by finding a cherry example of one with pristine valves in Syracuse, NY for only $XXX instead of $X,XXX. (Not for sale, sorry!)

You're between Philly/Baltimore, right? I will keep an eye out for you.

[prodigal]

Thank you!!!!!

BTW: horn stash has a 182 incorrectly labeled as a 186 right now.

[prodigal]

arp, I'm smack dab between Philly and Baltimore, a lonely place for a Yinzer

[Heavy_Metal]

Baltimore Brass has a few:

https://www.baltimorebrasscompany.com/c ... tubas.aspx

[prodigal]

Thanks everyone. I'll keep on it (and sell some stuff)! Where in the classifieds can I post some non-tubas?

[prodigal]

BTW: When did Eastman Strings get into importing copied tubas? As a strings teacher, I know they pretty much have the monopoly on student instruments save Yamaha.

[tubatodd]

There is a Meinl Weston 45slp in the For Sale section that seems to be reasonably priced. Not sure if this was what you were budgeting.

[Pauvog1]

Used 45slp under 5k

https://tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=11987

This next one is new (looks like a Yamaha clone - the smaller model), I've had good experience with JP, maybe also privately check with Bloke's pricing on the JP (or any of those models) as well? I had great experience ordering from JP items personally and school purchases from @bloke . That being said, between inflation and tarrifs prices maybe slightly higher, but still worth an email to check.

John Packer JP279F Key of F Yellow Brass Brass Body Tuba w/Hard ABS Wheeled Case, Mouthpiece, Valve Oil & Tuning Slide Grease https://reverb.com/item/78083776?utm_so ... t=78083776

[MikeMason]

Regarding housing inflation: I’d be curious to see inflation by square footage and level of luxury. Austere/ middle / luxury. I think,but am not sure, this is a part of the problem. If royalty from 1-300 years ago could see us, they would be astonished and switch places with us, I bet.