Jürgen Voigt Has Passed Away

[the elephant]

https://www.tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?t=13737

If you are in this forum, you have likely used something made by this man's company. I received a long-distance phone call from him many years ago. I wrote to him to order something special that would require some custom work. In that letter, I also happened to describe a small flaw in a rotary valve casing that I bought from him. It was not a criticism, nor was it a request for a refund.

The man CALLED me in the middle of his night so that he could reach me in the middle of my day. He spoke broken, heavily accented English, but spoke to me directly, asking me to describe the issue. When it proved too technical for his English, he put a young person on the phone to speak with me, and she spoke with me for about ten minutes. Then they curtly said goodbye and hung up. I never heard from them again regarding that issue, except…

About six weeks later, I received TWO new valves of the same design, neither having the minor flaw, both being immaculately brazed together. I think he took my comments as some sort of insult or challenge. So I think he personally built these two valves for me out of professional spite, HAHAHA!!! I had a lot of respect for him, calling me personally, like that. I wrote him a letter thanking him for the excellent valves. He replied (with a freaking POSTCARD!): Herr Rackley — Nichts zu danken.

That had to be in 1996 or 1997. It was a long time ago, for certain…