TubaForum.net

https://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/aucti ... uc=3630348

I have never understood why band directors keep buying these when they can have Miraphone 186s for the same money or less.

My wife won the auction on this one... We'll see what shape it is when we actually take possession of it. Maybe a player, maybe it ends up next to the 20J with no valves...

travisd wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2024 12:09 pm My wife won the auction on this one... We'll see what shape it is when we actually take possession of it. Maybe a player, maybe it ends up next to the 20J with no valves...

What was the final price? Looks like the auction link has expired.

About $300 I think.

^ Your wife got a steal of a deal on that tuba.

DonO. wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2024 6:17 pm I have never understood why his band directors keep buying these when they can have Miraphone 186s for the same money or less.

Or the B&S gr51 or when they were still in production the 3103 (pt1)

Took this one out yesterday to finally see what we bought. It plays - all the rotors move fine, linkage is noisy as anything though. Plenty of dents in the main branches, nothing horrible though. Few braces separated/missing. I think the bell has been buffed enough times that none of the factory engraving remains. If @arpthark hadn't ID'd this as a YBB-641 it would have taken a little time for me to figure out the model, but looking at the pics it's definitely that model.

Case is junk (outer plastic cracked/missing). If anyone needs case parts from it, let me know soon.

At some point we're going to swing by Baltimore Brass and get and idea of what it'll take to get it back into a more presentable condition.

Same school had a couple others on the same site that sold last week. Anyone here grab either of those? This it was another Yamaha, and a Conn.

I think Yamahas of that vintage had that weird brown/purple painted-on logo, and it's probably come off.

Finally got around to taking this one into Baltimore Brass to get into playing condition. After some back and forth on what made sense, we came up with a plan and they brought it in pretty much where I was hoping to. Linkages are all nice and quiet now, valves work great (werent' any valve problems before, just really clanky linkages). They managed to get the kind crushed tubes back to more or less round. My goal wasn't 'restoration' but more 'get it playing well and not looking like it was dropped off the bus' and I think we got it there.

To me (squarely in 'enthusiastic amateur tuba operator category) it plays nicely. Originally it was very stuffy - I suspect that in addition to all of the dents that there was probably other crap stuck in there as well, being a school horn...).





I think we're into this for about $1100 total which I'm going to consider a win in the auction tuba world...

Any pointers on a budget friendly gig bag? Not taking this thing all over the place, but want a little protection for whenever it does leave the house...

travisd wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 6:21 am Finally got around to taking this one into Baltimore Brass to get into playing condition. After some back and forth on what made sense, we came up with a plan and they brought it in pretty much where I was hoping to. Linkages are all nice and quiet now, valves work great (werent' any valve problems before, just really clanky linkages). They managed to get the kind crushed tubes back to more or less round. My goal wasn't 'restoration' but more 'get it playing well and not looking like it was dropped off the bus' and I think we got it there.

To me (squarely in 'enthusiastic amateur tuba operator category) it plays nicely. Originally it was very stuffy - I suspect that in addition to all of the dents that there was probably other crap stuck in there as well, being a school horn...).





I think we're into this for about $1100 total which I'm going to consider a win in the auction tuba world...

Any pointers on a budget friendly gig bag? Not taking this thing all over the place, but want a little protection for whenever it does leave the house...

Congrats on getting this tuba up and running!

I just bought a Superfine bag for my 186. I had been using a Gard bag that I was going to offload. I think the Yamaha may be a tiny bit taller, so if you can measure it I can check. I wouldn’t want a whole lot for it.

The 641 is about 40.5" long - the main body is about 18" wide, and the bell is around 16". It appears that the Miraphone G170102 would work for this. I know it's too big for the G170103 that I have for my Mack 210.

Definitely a win in the tuba world!

Yammy 641s aren't bad, they seem much thicker in brass than 186s, which isn't necessarily a bad thing with "young scholars."

There seems to be patterns in school instrument purchases:

Jupiter
Yamaha
and now Eastman (they've had the market in strings for 20 years or so now, so I'm not surprised that they have moved into the "band" side, there are fortunes to be made there.)

Yamaha is seen by many as default quality, even though they are just as pricey now as the rest.

Outside of brass (especially low brass) I'm not sure many music teachers have heard of Miraphone, B&S, or any of our eclectic brands.

Yamaha makes EVERYTHING, from Clavinovas to motorcycles, so the name is famous in most homes.

When I comes to school purchases I have to wonder if it's the director's selecting them, or the purchasing process leading them that way. Do they actually specify a brand, or do they have to provide specs/requirements and then the vendors respond with a proposal that meets or exceeds them? Then it comes down to who is better at writing a proposal vs who's better at creating product specs that make the intermediate purchasing people happy. This extends to things like warranties and parts availability - can the big mainstream vendor out compete better instruments on that aspect of the purchasing process?

There there comes the factor of, when buying a "package" of instruments, does the process favor the vendors who can supply a full line from a single source? Yamaha is going to be able to supply Brass, Woodwinds, Percussion, and Pianos (and more I'm sure).

Perhaps a more appropriate question might be,
"As property taxpayers struggle to make their mortage payments - certainly in locales in that part of the country (but even where they are soaked less) - and the shiny-new $11K instrument that replaced this one is likely already trashed by young scholars, why should a band director be allowed to 'surplus" an $11K (likely school bid new price) instrument that only would have cost them $800 to repair?"

It seems to me that public employees who have no skin in the game (ie. who decide to "junk" old perfectly-repairable things and buy "new" things with NOT their own money) should probably be subject to more stringent oversight.

bloke wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 3:57 pm Perhaps a more appropriate question might be,
"As property taxpayers struggle to make their mortage payments - certainly in locales in that part of the country (but even where they are soaked less) - and the shiny-new $11K instrument that replaced this one is likely already trashed by young scholars, why should a band director be allowed to 'surplus" an $11K (likely school bid new price) instrument that only would have cost them $800 to repair?"

It seems to me that public employees who have no skin in the game (ie. who decide to "junk" old perfectly-repairable things and buy "new" things with NOT their own money) should probably be subject to more stringent oversight.

Don't get me started!

I'm not scolding any individual and I'm GLAD for the person who now has a nice instrument.
I'm scolding SOME anonymous (and not straw men) band directors, and maybe some who take advantage of living in wealthier school districts.
Just because a higher percentage of a school district is made up of people of means, doesn't mean that they should be taken advantage of (and guess what? The low income people in those districts - as low income people live in every school district - who own modest houses or rent apartments: they pay property taxes as well.)

I'm currently working my way through a school (a huge repair order) whereby at least 90% of their instruments are brown with very little lacquer left on them. Oh yeah: They NEVER buy silver plated instruments.

The band and the school are growing VERY quickly. They had to build a new high school and the middle school had to move into the old high school (so very many people desperate to get out of Memphis).
Rather than buying a whole bunch of new instruments, guess what they did? They pulled everything that had out of their attic a couple of years ago (stuff that their former repair company had told them that wasn't fixable) simultaneous with the move to the new school, and we made every bit of that stuff play.

Kudos to them!

A repair/musical instrument sales monopoly company only does certain repairs. For example, they will only repair Glasser bows, and then they use synthetic hair, aka fiberglass. I'm not a fan of them!

They bid the lowest around here.

The only reason my school has the trashcan is that when our new school was built, they said "pick what you want," hence the 186 BBb, and a couple of Fox oboes and bassoons were my picks.

The cello that came with the school 26 years ago are still in good shape, I've done most of the repairs myself, at least till the wood shop went away.

bloke wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 3:57 pm Perhaps a more appropriate question might be,
"As property taxpayers struggle to make their mortage payments - certainly in locales in that part of the country (but even where they are soaked less) - and the shiny-new $11K instrument that replaced this one is likely already trashed by young scholars, why should a band director be allowed to 'surplus" an $11K (likely school bid new price) instrument that only would have cost them $800 to repair?"

It seems to me that public employees who have no skin in the game (ie. who decide to "junk" old perfectly-repairable things and buy "new" things with NOT their own money) should probably be subject to more stringent oversight.

I was quite please when my son's school opted to buy a bunch of B stock (scratch and dent) St. Petes when they had to plug the "home tuba" deficit. Now if I could only convince them to bring the Conn 25Js out of retirement.. I know they own 5 satin silver ones that are in the district storage building..

I'm glad that there are music programs growing out there!