Posts made by LegendaryConnMan

I have a couple of Conn 17B Director trumpets, and I also have one 17A Director cornet (all with coprion bells, and all made in the 1960s.) Those are excellent instruments. They were marketed as student instruments by Conn, but they play as well as any of the so-called "professional" models that Conn made during that time. It is said that, prior to 1970, the C.G. Conn company didn't make any student instruments, and that all of their instruments were of the highest, professional level quality.

The smaller .438" bore of these vintage Conn trumpets (like the 17B) make it a bit easier to get up into the upper register (especially with the right mouthpiece), and also make it easier to play longer without getting tired. The coprion bell on the trumpet makes the sound more focused and laser-like (less spread than the yellow brass bell of the 15B director), and therefore makes the 17B sound more like a typical C trumpet (in my opinion), even though it is in the key of Bb.

The coprion bell on the Conn 17A cornet gives that horn a bit of a warmer, darker sound (very nice and desirable for a cornet to have), which is a result of not only the copper (coprion) bell, but this also has to do with the different bore size, which is also more of a conical bore (as you would expect from a cornet.)

I have a collection of several vintage Conn trumpets (1920s through 1960s, mostly and one from 1978), several different models of these, all with the same .438" bore (a.k.a. Conn #1 bore), and the Conn directors that were made in the 1960s are among my favorites. I personally prefer the 17B (coprion bell) Director for classical gigs and sometimes for jazz soloing, and I prefer the Conn 15B (yellow brass bell) Director trumpet for playing lead trumpet in big bands and similar commercial music.

So yes, it's a great horn! You scored an excellent garage sale find, for sure.

@Anthony-Lenzo I have a lot of vintage Conn trumpets (ranging from the 1920s through the 1970s), but all of mine have the smaller, .438" bore size (22B, 24B, 6B, 36B, 15B, 17B.) So, I am not very familiar with vintage Conn trumpets like your 5B, which has a larger bore size. But, it is likely a good quality instrument, if you prefer that larger (ML) size bore.

@Alex-Otis This is definitely a gold-plated 1929 Conn 22B (New York Symphony model.) It's a great horn, IF the valves are still in good condition, and if the compression is also still good. I can tell the year by the serial number (and, before I looked up the serial number, I knew that it had to be from either 1928 or 1929 because the 22B trumpets made before that in the '20s did not have a right hand pinky ring. The fact that it is gold-plated, along with the fancy Stenberg engraving that goes all the way up the bell flare tells me that this was a "top-of-the line" model, and the original owner paid extra for those optional upgrades. Underneath the gold-plated bell is standard yellow brass, which sounds great (for most people's tastes, at least.) It has a 0.438" bore, also known as the Conn #1 bore. This is a very versatile horn, and makes a great lead trumpet or commercial trumpet, but it also works well in symphony orchestras, concert bands, chamber music, etc. Using a "lead trumpet mouthpiece" on it will brighten the sound up nicely, and will make it even more efficient (a GREAT lead horn.) And, a "legit" or "symphonic" mouthpiece (one that is deeper, with a more symphonic backbore, etc.) easily turns it into a great symphony/classical/legit horn, as the name "New York Symphony" implies. These instruments were used in all of the major symphony orchestras in the United states up until maybe about 1950 (?) or so, when Bach trumpets began to gain favor with most orchestra players. But, this instrument can blend very well and fit into a trumpet section in which the other trumpet players are using Bach or Yamaha symphony model trumpets.

By the way, don't let the model number on the case fool you: This is not the original case, and is a Conn trumpet case made many decades later. The original case was probably either broken or got lost, thus the newer Conn case replacement.

@Dale-Proctor The Bach Mercedes is a really good instrument, and those old Mercedes models (from the 1970s and earlier) play just as well as the "professional model" Bach Stradivarius models do (in my opinion, at least.) The same is true with the vintage so-called "student model" trumpets made by American companies (and made in America) in the 1970s and earlier. (The time frame varies from company to company, depending on exactly when each instrument manufacturing company began to change their "student models" and/or when each particular instrument company's quality started to deteriorate. Looks like you found a great solution for your 3rd slide ring dilemma though, so that's great!