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An oddity popped up on eBay, listed as a B and S 3106. Is anyone familiar with this model? I've never seen one like this!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/306789953073

It has some odd characteristics for a B and S, 45 degree exit from the valveset, straight approach at the top, and a very long leadpipe. I can't tell the bell size, but no kranz. Made in Germany stamp, so post reunification, but no Perantucci branding. It's listed as a C tuba but it looks Bb to me.

This is really interesting. Looks like a PT6 predecessor that takes a lot of inspiration from Alexander. Would LOVE to play it for a bit. But not enough to try to justify buying it.

Interesting looking, for sure.

Definitely a BBb. You can find some pics elsewhere on the web if you search. The archived B&S website on the Internet Archive shows a model 3105 as early as 2011, but that has a vertical main tuning slide. I'm guessing this is a less common '00s model.

B&S tubas just look weird to me with a horizontal main tuning slide, it looks like the love child of a B&S and a 187 hookup.

A few early reunification B&S instruments seem to have been built from mixes and matches of Geretsried-made parts and Markneukirchen-made parts.

I tend to suspect that the 1990s VMI 4/4 C and BB-flat rotary tubas were combinations of model 20 and model 3X West German bodies and bells mated with East German valve sets.

I don't make too much of that sidewise exit from the valveset as a "feature"...essentially this tuba layout has been around almost 100 years. The first tuba I bought new was like it I got it from Norm Bartold in the early 80's. Badged as a "La Sete", it'd been on a dusty shelf for 15-20 years at the time, probably made when Bartold & his brothers had a chain of music stores in So California in the 50's & 60's. ("3106" is a number consistent with Dan P and Bob T's earliest offerings of a "line" of tubas, so...the ebay horn is late 80's til maybe '92 or '93. Probably spent some time on a shelf too!) My La Sete was a great first horn, I changed out the clocksprings & levers for a Mirafone paddle setup and sold it when Tony got me my 184 in 1983. No idea why I got on an equipment kick so damn early in my "serious" years that La Sete was from an era when buying a tuba was an investment for your lifetime....last I heard that 60+ year-old tuba's still in regular use somewhere in the California Central Valley.

Here's a pic from a Japanese website. It looks kinda like a Yamaha 641 from this angle. Seems to be 4/4-ish sized.

Obviously, a 45° angle coming out of the top of the first rotor and out of the bottom of the fourth rotor simplifies the bending of the mouth pipe and of a main slide connector branch, but it also involves complications and special circumstances in rotary valve casing production.

Obviously at some point it was determined that bending technology had improved to the point that there was no practical reason anymore to make those two special rotary valve casing configurations, as they have disappeared from production.

Further, an advantage of eliminating it in the first rotor - in particular - defines that only one rotor type will accommodate both a four valve and a five valve configuration.

That's a bunch of words to simply say that I agree with Dale, in that it's really not a "feature" - other than it's noticeable, because most human observations are made with the eyes.

prodigal wrote: Thu Feb 26, 2026 9:24 am B&S tubas just look weird to me with a horizontal main tuning slide, it looks like the love child of a B&S and a 187 hookup.

It’s a Bb thing. The 101 always had the sideways main slide from the time before B&S was even B&S.

https://brassandpipes.wordpress.com/201 ... model-101/

It was modeled on the Bb Alex 163 of old, also with a sideways slide, going back to the 30’s when Hess started making them.

I see the 3xxx model numbering as being a VMI innovation following unification, when the 101 morphed into the somewhat less good 3103 and its many clones.

It’s the same with the old Bb 104 kaiser and the Alexander 164 on which it was based that Jake also wrote about.

These are all derived from the original Cerveny rotary contrabass tubas of the 1870’s, which led to the Bohland and Fuchs, etc., and all had sideways slides.

The F tubas and C tubas had the vertical slide.

What I don’t get is what distinguishes the 3106 from the 3103—I wonder if it’s bigger.

Rick “never handled a 3106” Denney

I guess I just automatically visualize B&S tubas with the vertical main tuning slide from the line of F tubas.

arpthark wrote: Thu Feb 26, 2026 10:34 am Here's a pic from a Japanese website. It looks kinda like a Yamaha 641 from this angle. Seems to be 4/4-ish sized.

Yeah, it definitely looks like a 641 in your pic.

You learn something new here every day!

Rick Denney wrote: Thu Feb 26, 2026 12:53 pm What I don’t get is what distinguishes the 3106 from the 3103—I wonder if it’s bigger.

probably bell diameter, and I've decided that in regards to pitch on these modern-er instruments,
the vertical/horizontal slide (like the angled entry/exit at the valveset) isn't a "feature" either

So here's a 3103, described as a BBflat, on Reverb, with a vertical tuning slide


And my B&S Sonora pitched in CC with a horizontal slide. Some people call it a CC Symphonie, I call it a lucky find.

Well you know 7, 8, 9. I’ll show myself out.

Did I sell you that, Dale, or did you buy it from someone who I sold it to? I honestly don't remember.

That bell is the same exact bell that they put on the B&S Symphonie F tuba. The B flat version bell is totally different.

If I were to give a model to a 4/4 do it all tuba, in BBb or CC, I'd number it 3006.