10-page early 1970's Miraphone tuba brochure

[bloke]

[the elephant]

This is fantastic. I had the ones from 1981 through 1985 for many years, but have lost them. I wasted a lot of time in high school looking at these things.

[bloke]

I recall a blue background-color one (rather than orange) which more emphasized their various products, rather than their various artists…
… straight and oval baritones, post horns, double slide contrabass trombone, the various sizes and lengths of tubas, etc., etc.
I just don’t know if I have one of those, anymore.

It’s instructive that the picture of Roger Bobo is towards the back and rather small. I believe his lack of prominence - in placement/size of his picture - might help date it.

[Jperry1466]

Thanks for posting this! Lots of great names and familiar faces. I got to meet Wes Jacobs around this time when he did a clinic in Fort Worth, just after he went to the Detroit Symphony. I see an old friend in the University of Houston tuba section, Larry Campbell, who was the band director at Blinn College for many years.

[the elephant]

… I recall a blue background-color one (rather than orange)…

I had that one. It was 1981, I think.

[bisontuba]

Have both in my archives...great stuff..

BTW—- Bill Kearney, Roger’s roommate at Eastman, was my first private teacher...wonderful person...

[bloke]

Does that 184-6U noted under Tommy Johnson exist anywhere? Sounds interesting.

Thank you for posting this, @bloke!

[Stryk]

Jim Croft, band director at Oshkosh, was later Director of Bands at FSU and a world renowned conductor.

[DonO.]

I had that one! I wish I’d saved it. When I was a HS band geek in the early 70’s I used to read the Instrumentalist magazine that the band director got, and the ads showed both Meinl Weston (a division of Getzen at the time) and Mirafone with an F. To a young lad like myself these were the things dreams were made of. I just knew I wanted to end up with one or the other. To be honest I was favoring Meinl Weston based on the fact that our school owned them. After one year of playing falling apart Sousaphones held together with duct tape, epoxy putty, and wire, our school bought 4 brand new Meinl Weston 3 valve horns convertible for marching. It is my belief that these were some of the very first “contra bugle” style tubas on the market, but I have no proof of that note do I know the model number of those. In spite of my bias I wrote a nice letter to the Mirafone people asking for more information. They sent me a personal letter, the above brochure, and a Roger Bobo solo album. He became my instant hero! I was so impressed with the package they sent I started leaning their way. But I ended up with a Meinl Weston model 25 as my first serious horn, because a used horn came along at the right time at the right price. But thank you for posting this and bringing back a lot of memories for me!

[bloke]

I'm of the understanding that small, two-valve (piston/rotor), chrome-plated, GG, contrabass, shoulder-mounted tubas were in existence (probably Olds/Getzen) prior to the Meinl-Weston model 10 "convertible" BB-flat.

[bloke]

Maybe...??
You could jpg-scan the instruments-oriented brochure, and upload it in this (or another thread) via imgur (or another host).

Have both in my archives...great stuff..

BTW—- Bill Kearney, Roger’s roommate at Eastman, was my first private teacher...wonderful person...

[bisontuba]

I actually have both catalogs available for viewing at Horn-U-Copia under their 'library' section...

[bloke]

I actually have both catalogs available for viewing at Horn-U-Copia under their 'library' section...

ok...cool...so here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m70tuxcr3e81t ... 5.pdf?dl=0

I've seen the three American-looking trombones in 3D.

They were absolute counterfeit-QUALITY (ie. would fool anyone, OTHER THAN for the "Mirafone" bell stamping and nickel-silver water key screw...even the friggin' CASES would pass for Bach/Conn from that era) copies of a Bach Stradivarius 16, Conn 88H, and Conn 72H, and were SUPERB instruments.

[bisontuba]

[DonO.]

I'm of the understanding that small, two-valve (piston/rotor), chrome-plated, GG, contrabass, shoulder-mounted tubas were in existence (probably Olds/Getzen) prior to the Meinl-Weston model 10 "convertible" BB-flat.

If you are talking about the instruments I think you are, then yes those existed first. But they weren’t what I would consider tubas. They were contrabass bugles made for drum and bugle corps use. With only two valves, typically right piston-left rotor, they were not truly chromatic (rotor was 1/2 step and thumb-operated piston was a whole step) and not suitable for band. At that time drum and bugle corps were “hot stuff” and I myself marched in three different units at different times. Many school marching bands in the early 70’s were switching from a swing or show style to “corps style”- trying to play, look, and march like a drum and bugle corps. My high school band director was all on top of that, and the MW model 10’s were part of that “corps style” look. But of course they were 3/4 size real 3 valve tubas with upright pistons for concert and, with the lead pipe switched, the three valves faced forward and were played with fingers, unlike the backwards facing single thumb operated piston on the bugles. As far as I know, this was the earliest tuba to imitate the look of the shoulder mounted contrabass bugle. Our band went to many competitions and I only saw one other band that had horns like that, and they looked identical to ours. If there are earlier examples of the the true convertible marching/concert tuba (I would be talking 1972 or 73) I would be curious to know about it. I’d like to know just how cutting edge our high school band was.

[bloke]

yes...semantics..."tuba/tuba", "horn/horn", "bugle/bugle", "contrabass/contrabass", etc...

Probably/Possibly, the M-W 10 was the first "convertible" B-flat.

[DonO.]

Then my high school was on the cutting edge, so to speak. For marching band anyway. Now I know that in their upright concert configuration they weren’t that great, but compared to those pile of junk Sousaphones I thought I was in hog heaven! Still, seeing that catalog again brought back to the surface that for many years I’ve had a suppressed desire for a 186… but have never owned one. I’m only 65-there’s still time!

[bloke]

Then my high school was on the cutting edge, so to speak. For marching band anyway. Now I know that in their upright concert configuration they weren’t that great, but compared to those pile of junk Sousaphones I thought I was in hog heaven! Still, seeing that catalog again brought back to the surface that for many years I’ve had a suppressed desire for a 186… but have never owned one. I’m only 65-there’s still time!

Miraphone (not convertible) competed with the Meinl-Weston 10/11 with the Miraphone "Standard" 1270/1271.



When I was in the 12th grade, we got a Miraphone 1270 and a Reynolds TB-10. Compared to our (school-owned, albeit leaky) King 1240 and (stand-mate-owned) 1241 they were "grunty"-sounding...but we tooted on them, sometimes (it was only the two of us, that year).

I used the 1270 to play a silly little Art Dedrick-composed tuba solo called *"A Touch of Tuba" with the band, at the end of the year (still - at that time - considering "tuba" to be "a class I took in the morning" rather than an "instrument") - but I used it for nothing else...
I guess (??) I was already migrating towards the "big-tuba/little-tuba, and their purposes" thing, though I knew NOTHING about ANY tubas, in particular.
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* https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/a- ... UQQAvD_BwE

[pjv]

Ah, these brochures bring back memories.
I never saved mine.
I did however buy one of those tuba stands, and later found a similar stand at a thrift store.
Did they make them themselves or did they have a deal with Walberg and Auge?

[Ed Jones]

Ev Gilmore and "Grandma"!