@Gendreauj said in Conn.Coprion student ? trumpet.:
One of my first trumpets was a Conn Coprion. Loved the color of the trumpet. Good student horn for the time and built like a tank.
Would love to find a copper professional horn.
Conn made a few, like the 10B Artist trumpet and the 9A Victor cornet. I have a 1962 Conn 9A cornet and it’s a great instrument.
About the only thing the cold affects is the viscosity of the valve oil and slide grease. The valves and slides may be a little sluggish till the horn warms up. If there’s any moisture in the horn, it could freeze, but I wouldn’t think there would be enough of it to damage anything.
@stumac said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:
This morning I played my1931 King Silver Tone trumpet for the first time in over 12months, the valves were free and smooth, I did not oil them (shame) and found as Dale the tone was dull and lifeless, after about 10 minutes of playing the tone was much improved and sounded more like me. I will try it again tomorrow after playing my usual horns.
I have not noticed this on any of my other horns that get played on a regular basis.
Regards,Stuart.
Thanks for the confirmation, Stuart.
@ROWUK said in Dry instrument vs Wet instrument:
Moisture! The speed of sound in moist air is different than in dry and in the microcosmos of the trumpet, that is a big deal. Intonation and targets change.
Granted, if one has minimal chops, other issues may mask the effect.
A „moist“ instrument is different than just running water through it first (although that does help some).This is such a fundamental thing for me that I will not risk playing a gig on a dry trumpet (even although it is only dry for the first 10 minutes or so). When testing trumpets, the first 10 minutes do not count.
Thank you for the info and confirmation, sir!
I refrained from commenting on this thread till now, and I think out of courtesy, I will say no more…
Those old Conn trumpets have a sleeve over the leadpipe, so you’ll never see red rot on the outside of one. The only way to see it is by pulling the tuning slide out and looking inside the leadpipe for hard, crusty spots that are slightly elevated.
1969 Olds L12 flugelhorn with GR/Melk leadpipe. Restored by Southeastern Musical Services.
I kept the Olds flugelhorn and Eb/D trumpet, the 3 Bachs (Bb, C, and cornet), the Conn 6B trumpet, and the 150 year old Henry Lehnert cornet. In addition to those, I now have an 1890 English Besson A/Bb/C cornet and a 1962 Conn 9A Victor cornet. I suppose that makes 9 cornets & trumpets total, plus the 3 bugles. Two of the bugles are just bookcase ornaments in the den, though - the Kanstul is the only one I ever play, and that’s just for the occasional sounding of Taps.
If the horn isn’t stopped up and it’s very difficult to play, your water key(s) may be leaking badly. Of course, if you haven’t touched a horn in 60 years, it’s probably you. Taking a break from playing for that long is like starting over.
@Richard-III said in Old vintage maintenance.Conn:
In 60 years of playing, I've never seen red rot. Some of my horns are well over a hundred years old. I don't swab or put oil down the lead pipe. I rarely give my horns a bath. If they get gunky, I'll then do the bath thing.
So that brings up a question, how common really is it for those of you that have had the problem?
I’ve never owned an instrument that developed red rot, and I’ve played a couple of them for 40 years now, and a third one for 20 years. And, I am pretty lax about cleaning them as often as I should. Maybe the brass used was resistant to it, but I suspect a large part of the red rot problem is just a high level of acidity in the owner’s saliva, with a lack of horn cleanliness just being a contributing factor. We’ve all seen people whose hands quickly eat through the exterior finish on a trumpet and then attack the brass underneath, while other people don’t have that problem. I’d guess it’s the same thing with saliva - some peoples’ saliva corrodes brass, and others’ saliva doesn’t.
I own a couple instruments that do have red rot, but they already had it when I bought them. The rot is an aesthetic blemish right now, but I’ll probably be 6 feet under before there are actually any holes in the leadpipes.
To me, cornets, trumpets, and flugelhorns of multiple keys are all in the same subset of brass instruments that are played with similar diameter mouthpieces. Tubas, trombones, baritones, tenor horns, French horns, etc, aren’t.
@neal085 said in Horn Collection:
For our edification, can you identify each of them?
Ok, to the best of my recollection:
Top to bottom first column - Kanstul Bb field trumpet, circa 2000, U.S. Regulation field trumpet, Indian copy of a British duty bugle, circa late 1970s, Olds L-12 flugelhorn, early 1970s.
Second column - 1976 Bach Strad Bb ML 43 trumpet, 1982 Bach Strad C ML 239 trumpet, 1960 Conn 6B Victor Bb trumpet, 1925 Conn 22B Bb/A trumpet, early 1970s Olds Ambassador Eb/D trumpet.
Third column - 1993 Bach Strad L 184G Bb cornet, 1969 Conn 76A Connquest Bb cornet, 1965 Conn 5A Victor Bb cornet, circa 1870 Henry Lehnert SARV Bb cornet.
I have a couple…a 1969 L-12 flugelhorn with a GR/Melk leadpipe and a 1977 A-11E Eb/D trumpet.
Check out this site. You may want to contact them for some insight on your cornet and register it on the site so there’s a historical record of it. They registered my 1890 F. Besson and gave me some good info on it. They were pretty slow to respond, though.
http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/am/gdnj.html
Here’s a screen shot of the page containing instruments from that serial number era.
@bigdub said in A little humour:
I always wanted to express my feel for these civil servants we owe so much respect to....”THE BUILDING INSPECTOR”
By me.
...until you have to deal with one who’s a little Napoleon. I knew the codes better than he did, but it took a call to his supervisor to get him to see it my way.
I took a few glamour shots of my 1890 F. Besson London Nouveau Etoile model A/Bb/C cornet today. It’s a neat old instrument, and plays surprisingly well to be 130 years old. It’s listed on the Galpin Society of 19th century Besson instruments known to exist. The surviving company books list this one as shipped to Carl Fischer, New York, in December 1890.
1962 Conn 9A Victor cornet, Coprion bell and leadpipe, .485 bore.
Here’s a link to more 19th century Besson history and serial numbers. Your cornet may be a few years older than you think. This is excellent reference material.
Yep. I usually wear a full coverage Snell approved helmet, gloves, boots, heavy jeans, and a motorcycle jacket. Not overboard protection, but I’m comfortable with it. I’ve been riding since 1966, raced motocross in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s (but was mediocre at it), and am still here, so I suppose I’m fairly decent at it by now...lol
@richard-iii said in Arban’s Cornet:
@dale-proctor More photos are up now.
Yes, I saw them a little while ago. That water key on it bothers me, though.
