(Oh, you say you don't get that reference? Well here's a little dose of campiness to bring you up to speed)
The second bell is activated by pressing the fourth valve. That reroutes air from the main bell to the second bell, giving a softer, less robust sound.
It looks like someone rebuilt this instrument and did a lot of dent work at some point, and they didn't do a bad job of it at all, though it was surely not a professional restoration. There's evidence that a lot of the solder joints have been redone, and hammer marks from some less-than-perfect dent removal. They managed to put it back together with everything straight, though, which is a tough job. Plus, they managed to not damage the plating! The gold wash in both bells is incredibly well-preserved except right at the rim. It's just about the finest gold wash I've seen.
The owner has had this instrument sitting around for awhile, playing it occasionally, but he hasn't done extensive maintenance on it, and has never sent it out for cleaning. It was completely black when I got it from him, so it was tough to tell the condition of the plating. Fortunately the satin silver turned out to be mostly intact, so things cleaned up very nicely.
I love these old engravings!
No comments:
Post a Comment