Posted by Rick Denney on September 23, 2003 at 10:39:03:
In Reply to: Re: Holton tuba survey, therd times a charm posted by Carole Nowicke on September 22, 2003 at 18:39:43:
I have to say that I agree. A published list of the instruments, especially those in professional use, would seem to me no invasion of privacy. Of course, anyone wanting to remain anonymous could request it, and be listed as "anonymous".
What would really help is a good list of serial numbers. Those numbers lead to dates, and might start to suggest the production patterns of the instruments. And if there are notable changes in how they are made, these changes can be linked to production periods. We don't need to know the current owner's name to use that information, all we need is a serial number and a couple of decent pictures.
For example, lore has it that the 345's were made in batches of a few, with each batch being produced every several years. If the serial numbers are clumped, then the lore may be true. If they are evenly spread, though, it brings it into question. And then there's the suggestion by Joe that one of the branches is smaller on some of the later versions, and so on.
I wanted to attempt a similar thing with B&M-made York Masters, but they are much harder to pin down usefully, and there has been so much sample variation and model diversity that I had to give up. You already have much more about the big Holtons than I ever hoped to discover.
Rick "wondering if tuba players in 50 years will be trying to understand Hirsbrunner production patterns" Denney