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I Can't Believe I Bought Another Horn.

Maynard Ferguson R.I.P.

The king of screech trumpet recently passed away. He will be missed.

Folks with high-speed connections should be sure to click on the audio-video link, not only to hear some of Maynard's stratospheric playing but also to enjoy the trombone artistry of the young guy Maynard introduces from the section.

Good stuff.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
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Unloaded 1 Via Craig's List -- But Eyeballing Another eBay Special.

Somebody wanting to buy a horn for $1,500 put a wanted notice on Craig's List, to which I responded politely. We exchanged E-Mails & some phone calls, then -- yadda-yadda-yadda -- the person came over after work & bought 1 of my horns for $799, a bargain for the buyer & a (modest) profit for the seller. (Not enough profit, however, to make up for getting taken to the cleaners on the outstanding customized Yamaha YHR-668N I sold on eBay a while back. So it goes.)

Now the money is burning a hole in my pocket -- might spend some of it on a nice-looking underappreciated horn I spied on eBay recently, depending on whether the bidding stays low.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Got Outsniped. So It Goes.

Somebody outbid me by the minimim increment.

Am I unhappy? Nope. I would have been glad to have the horn at my price. For my price + 1 cent, I am not interested.

The system works.
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
You are so disciplined. Another horn will come along. :) To be successful in buying timeshares on the cheap, the same discipline is true and a program will do it for you.

When emotions take over, you will pay too much but not always! We have witnessed two real estate auctions in person of beautiful ocean front condos where this happened but these condos are worth so much more money today so buying on emotions did well for the people who bought.

I watch the eBay auctions every once and a while just for fun and it gets exciting when the bidding goes fast.
 
Old Man Playing eBay Horn.

AAC2-CFB-D06.jpg

The instrument I'm playing is the outstanding eBay Yamaha YHR-666N that is now 1 of my keepers. The picture was taken December 2006 in Fairfax VA at a rehearsal for the City Of Fairfax Band's annual holiday concert. A few weeks later I took the horn with me on vacation to Orlando FL, & on band practice night for the Lakeland Concert Band, I drove on up to Lakeland & sat in on rehearsal with them.

Yamaha YHR-666 & YHR-666N are discontinued models, manufactured 1981-1985 only. (YHR-666 is made of conventional yellow "cartridge" brass. YHR-666N is made of a silver-colored alloy known variously as nickel silver & German silver, which contains zero actual silver -- basically it's just a whitish brass.) I think I figured out why the Yamaha brain trust decided to quit making them. It could have gone something like this: One day, a product manager rushes into the Yamaha executive suite with some devastating news. "Sir, we have a big problem with our French horn line."

"Oh?" says the Yamaha bigwig. "What kind of problem?"

"Well, sir, it turns out our intermediate-grade student step-up model horn plays better, sounds better, & has better intonation than our top-line professional model horn. What are we going to do?"

"Only 1 thing we can do."

"What's that, sir?"

"Immediately discontinue our intermediate-grade student step-up model horn. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

Far as I know, the Yamaha musical instrument division is separate from the Yamaha motorcycle division & the Yamaha outboard engine division. My next-door neighbor's son has an older model Ford Taurus SHO equipped with a Yamaha V6 engine. Who'd a-thunk?
-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
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Nice photo and your story makes sense. It may well have happened that way. ;)
 
Emmy, You Are So Right.

iconnections said:
Another horn will come along.
Click to expand...
I have been rebuilding credibility with The Chief Of Staff by selling off some of the unloved horns I have around here, 1s I got tired of or that I bought low with the specific intent of re-selling high(er). Then another rarity came along that The Devil made me buy: an eBay Selmer (Paris) professional model double horn, the only 1 like it I've seen in person or in photographs or anywhere -- & believe me, I've seen some horns.

Selmer (Paris) -- as distinct from Selmer USA -- is known mainly for its highly prized lines of professional clarinets & saxophones. The Selmer (Paris) folks bought out what was left of Adolphe Sax's instrument works in the 1920s. Including its famous professional clarinets & saxes, Selmer (Paris) mainly builds quality instruments for the professional market, while Selmer USA mainly builds student-grade instruments for amateur & school musicians. (But, shucks, some of us amateur musicians with more money than brains buy professional grade horns anyhow. That way, if there's ever a question in my mind about whether some performance problem I'm having is due to the instrument on the 1 hand or due on the other hand to my own lack of ability, I know for sure it's due to my lack of ability. So it goes.)

That particular Selmer (Paris) horn I bought is such a rarity that when I Google or DogPile "Selmer (Paris) double horn" or "Selmer (Paris) double French horn," the only true match that comes up is the completed eBay item for the actual, specific horn I just bought. All the other "hits" are false positives for web sites that mention "Selmer (Paris)" 1 place & "double horn" or "double French horn" some other place, as with on-line instrument catalogue listings that include anybody's double horns (e.g., Conn, Holton, Yamaha) right along with Selmer (Paris) saxophones or clarinets or both.

The unique design of the horn brings to mind something I've heard Click & Clack The Tappet Bros. say about French automobiles: The French copy nobody, & nobody copies the French. Even if that's true for cars & horns, it's not true for saxophones. Everybody copies the Selmer (Paris) line of saxes. And as if in testimonial to the prestige of the Selmer (Paris) marque, one of the no-name, low-grade el cheapo brands of saxes, horns, trumpets, etc., seen all over eBay is Selman -- as in, "Don't buy cheap junk. Insist on genuine Selman," as if "Selman" itself weren't cheap junk.

On this particular eBay auction that I won, I did not get caught up in any competitive bidding. The item came up, on Day 1 I bid a few bux over the starting amount, nobody else bid all week, & I won the auction for the opening bid amount -- the 2nd time that's happened to me as buyer. As if to compensate, it's also happened to me a few times as seller.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Goodbye Selmer (Paris) Double Horn -- Hello Fake Alexander 103

I made a little something flipping my Selmer (Paris) double horn via eBay -- not enough to make up for getting taken to the cleaners when I sold my customized Yamaha YHR-668N, but a little something nonetheless.

One might think I had learnt my lesson regarding eBay horn bids. But no. I still check out the eBay horn offerings & I still send in lowball bids that quickly got outbid by others. Occasionally though -- as in rarely -- a lowball bid will stand up & will win. I have "accidentally" bought several horns that way. (At least they're not "accidental" timeshares.)

Now, I need another horn around here like a Moose needs a Hat Rack. That didn't stop me from bidding low on an eBay fake Alexander 103 described by the seller as practically new.

The eBay seller is up in Annapolis MD, so maybe I can arrange with the seller to pay for the horn & pick it up in person. Otherwise, I'll mail the seller a check & wait for 1 of those big brown trucks to deliver the horn.

I've already got a fake Alexander 102ST. Might as well add a fake Alexander 103 to the collection. That only ups the pressure to sell off more of the unloved horns around here, come what may.

Meanwhile, nobody has bid (yet) on that cute little Mirafone B-flat single horn I'm offering on eBay -- although 11 people are "watching" it. Maybe some of them have set up automated last-second bids on eSnipe.com -- I hope so. By Sunday night I'll know.

So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 
Alan, could you post a link to the Selmer auction? I'd like to see the horn.

Thanks for posting all this. My grandfather was a musician, but musical ability has skipped generation after generation around here.
 
Selmer (Paris) Horn Pictures Gone (I.E., No Longer On Internet).

wackymother said:
Alan, could you post a link to the Selmer auction? I'd like to see the horn.
Click to expand...
I took the Selmer (Paris) double horn pictures off the Internet to make room on the server for all those digital photos of the Mirafone B-flat single horn that's currently on eBay. The only Selmer (Paris) horn picture left at eBay is the 1 eBay hosted free (way down at the bottom of the page). All the others are off.

But I didn't delete the Selmer (Paris) pix off my own electric computer at home. I still have'm & I could send some via E-Mail if you want more views of the horn than you get from that lone photo remaining on eBay.

Let me know.

Meanwhile, what musical "ability" I once had ( -- if any -- ) is rapidly deteriorating into a semi-nostalgic horn collecting hobby fueled by eBay. I can (mostly) keep up with the good players if I practice every day. When I don't, I can't So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Just the one is enough, thanks--I'm just nosy. Beautiful horn!

When we were kids and into our teens, my father dragged my sister and me to every Salvation Army and checked out every strange musical instrument. (He plays the clarinet and the saxophone.) (Not too well.) He bought a few but left most of them behind. Now I could kick myself, because there were some fantastic things...of course there's always eBay!

Thanks again for posting!
 
Oh, I just looked at the Mirafone! Love the little dimes on the keys!
 
Dimes.

wackymother said:
Oh, I just looked at the Mirafone! Love the little dimes on the keys!
Click to expand...
There are 3 Good Reasons & 1 Real Reason for soldering dimes onto the horn valve levers, to wit . . .

1. By positioning the dimes so they extend slightly beyond the lever tips, the levers can be lengthened a bit, if needed, to accommodate players with smallish hands.

2. Dimes add thickness to levers that have worn thin at the ends from longtime use.

3. Dimes on the levers give a constant tactile reminder of optimum finger position -- that is, with the fingers arched so that the fingertips are up by the wide parts of the levers.

4. Silver dimes on the valve levers are Way Cool !

bMirafone.jpg

Base-metal dimes, however, are uncool. For customizing valve levers on horns, the coins have to be genuine silver. (Gold is too ostentatious -- more so than silver, I mean, not to mention more costly.) So USA & Canada dimes used for that purpose have to be minted 1964 or earlier. That's why I go for the USA silver "Mercury" (i.e., Winged Liberty) dimes -- they're all genuine silver, with no need to check the dates on'm to be sure. Roosevelt dimes after 1964 are base metal, but 1964 & earlier are silver. Ditto Canadian "sailboat" dimes. So it goes.

Some horn players go to the trouble of installing dimes minted in the year of the player's birth -- no problem for us Old Folks. However, that's way too much trouble to go to, & starts veering over from Way Cool to Way Eccentric -- not that there's anything wrong with that. (I mean, shux, just playing horn at all is pretty far over on the eccentric side, no? All the more so for an eBay-using, timeshare-owning, Old Folks kind of horn player -- not that there's anything wrong with that, either.)

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​


 
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AwayWeGo said:

starts veering over from Way Cool to Way Eccentric -- not that there's anything wrong with that. [/RIGHT]
Click to expand...

Good thing, as I am tending to veer that way myself these days. :D So did you solder these dimes on yourself? Or did the horn come that way?
 
Custom Horn Work Done Professionally.

wackymother said:
So did you solder these dimes on yourself? Or did the horn come that way?
Click to expand...
I had the custom work (dimes, water key) done professionally by the same local guy (retired U.S. Army Band tuba player) who did the dent repairs, etc.

I can fix Sears & WhirlPool clothes dryers & install dishwashers & swap out toilets, but that's about it as far as handyman stuff goes.

The dimes came from eBay. I still have some more left, just in case The Devil makes me buy any more eBay horns needing customizing -- 1 never know, do 1 ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 
Mirafone Did Not Sell -- So I Put It Back On eBay For Another Go.

No luck after 1 week.

I'm trying it again.

So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Dang! Mirafone Did Not Sell After 2nd Try On eBay.

So I jacked up the price (over the eBay opening bid that never materialized) & put the horn on Craig's List.

So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
So This Guy . . .

. . . responds to my Craig's List Mirafone ad, not because he has any interest in the Mirafone -- it's a single B-flat horn & he's interested in a double horn in F & B-flat -- but because he figures from the wording of the ad that maybe I know a thing or 2 about horns & possibly could suggest where he might find 1 to buy that's (a) decent & (b) affordable.

I start to give him (via E-Mail) a short version of eBay French Horn 101 . Then I come to my senses. Instead, I tell him all about a nice no-name Czech-made double horn I have that I decided to sell after I unload the Mirafone. Shux, no need to sell the Mirafone 1st if this guy might want the Czech horn.

So yadda-yadda-yadda the guy comes over & checks out both horns -- the Mirafone & the Czech no-name -- & he likes'm (specially the no-name Czech double horn). But he is short on funds. So I get instantly creative. I tell him I have not yet photographed the horn he likes & if he's interested in it I will not put it on Craig's List till I hear back from him.

He says he is interested, & not only that he might be receiving some holiday money of the kind that grows on trees (family trees, that is). Great, I say.

Then I promised to do nothing with that horn till I hear from the guy -- even though he is not committed 1 way or another about buying it. Plus, I say, we'll be away 2 weeks in January, so he need not worry if he's unable to contact me till late next month.

He thanks me for inviting him in & letting him play my horns. I thank him for coming over & checking'm out. We shake hands. The guy leaves. I might not ever see him again -- or he might come back later on & spring for my unloved no-name Czech-made double horn. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I am now thinking of photographing my outstanding Cousenon (Paris) 1920's-era Tuxedo model "peashooter" trumpet -- the kind Louis Armstrong played -- so I can put that on Craig's List 1 of these days. It's always something.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 
Glutton For Punishment.

Even though the unloved Mirafone horn is still unsold, The Devil made me buy a nice little eBay Geyer-wrap double horn (keys of F and B-flat all in 1 instrument -- very tricky) via eSnipe.

Nobody else even bid at all, so I got the horn for the opening no-reserve bid amount, which is $50 or so less than the seller's Buy It Now price.

I'm thinking of having some minimal custom work done, then photographing the horn way more than my seller did so when I put it back on eBay it won't be overlooked the way it was when I bought it.

Best case scenario -- I make a little something.

Worst case scenario -- I have another surplus horn taking up space around here.

We'll see, eh ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
eBay Horn, No. String, Yes.

Steamboat Bill said:
Thre real question - is it a PINK horn?
Click to expand...
The eBay horn is just standard yellow "cartridge" brass -- not that there's anything wrong with that for horns, trombones, trumpets, tubas, saxophones, etc.

However that may be, I just got done bundling up a humongous pile of back yard fallen tree debris using pink string from a humongous ball of twine that I bought specially with that purpose in mind at a flea market near St. Augustine FL.

The string is not so much cell-phone pink as the color traffic cones would be if traffic cones were pink instead of orange.

The shocking pink string stands out conspicuously against the greenish-brownish hue of the branches & leaves. That way the pick-up crew riding on the yard debris truck can plainly tell the stuff is appropriately bundled & tied. With green or grey or brown string, the bundled tree debris might be mistaken for an unbundled heap, which the trash truck guys would not bother picking up.

So the stuff is all chopped, cut, bundled, & set out front for pick-up in the morning. I'll let you know what happens.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 
The Pink String Did The Job.

The truck rolled into the circle & backed right up to the stacked bundles of tree debris all trussed up in pink string.

The guys leapt off the truck, heaved all the bundles into the hopper, flushed the handle, jumped back on, & dieseled off to the next stop.

Is this a great country or what ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Musical Instrument? Or Non-Traditional Plumbing Fixture ?

Art4th said:
Alan,
I'll bet you don't have one of these: http://defreestvillefire.org/horn.jpg
This is one you definitely have to play standing up.
Click to expand...
I think anybody using that horn for its intended purpose will need to be standing up.

horn.jpg

-- hotlinked --​

Kind of hard to tell for sure, but from the way that 1 is hooked up, it might actually be the world famous Gold Commode.

cep%20731-4grtwx.jpg

--hotlinked --​

You won't find that at Home Depot or Lowe's.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​


 
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Mirafone Horn That Didn't Sell On eBay -- Twice -- Is Back On eBay.

wackymother said:
Oh, I just looked at the Mirafone! Love the little dimes on the keys!
Click to expand...
If it doesn't sell this time I might as well give it to The Salvation Army.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 
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