King 3b Silversonic Help

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Kingbrit
Posts: 3
Joined: Jun 20, 2021

by Kingbrit »

King 3b Help

Any experts out there on dating King instruments?

I’ve got a 3b Silversonic that has no serial number on the bell section.

The slide has a hard to make out serial which looks to say 389 - - -

I know some people are quite knowledgeable on the engraving styles etc. Any help anyone can offer would be great.

Will post images attached.
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chromebone
Posts: 454
Joined: Apr 08, 2018

by chromebone »

HN White + shorter tuning slide puts it between 1960 and 1965.
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Kingbrit
Posts: 3
Joined: Jun 20, 2021

by Kingbrit »

Thankyou!

I’ve always been a Bach player but this seemed to blow really well. Is there a particular golden era or era to avoid when it comes to King bones?
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chromebone
Posts: 454
Joined: Apr 08, 2018

by chromebone » (edited 2021-06-20 2:50 p.m.)

Kings were excellent through the HN White and King musical instruments days, and still pretty good UMI and Conn-Selmer. King didn’t have a really bad period like Conn did. The golden era is probably mid to late 1930’s - early 1970’s. Your horn is definitely from a good period.
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Burgerbob
Posts: 6327
Joined: Apr 23, 2018

by Burgerbob »

There's no serial on the slide reciever?
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Kingbrit
Posts: 3
Joined: Jun 20, 2021

by Kingbrit »

[quote="Burgerbob"]There's no serial on the slide reciever?[/quote]
Nope. No serial on it....
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Burgerbob
Posts: 6327
Joined: Apr 23, 2018

by Burgerbob »

[quote="Kingbrit"]<QUOTE author="Burgerbob" post_id="151300" time="1624214840" user_id="3131">
There's no serial on the slide reciever?[/quote]
Nope. No serial on it....
</QUOTE>

Huh. May have been replaced. In any case, jealous! That's probably a great horn.
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harrisonreed
Posts: 6479
Joined: Aug 17, 2018

by harrisonreed »

The king 3B is such a good design that it doesn't really matter what era it was made in. Even the newest horns from last year are phenomenal.
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DaveAshley
Posts: 240
Joined: Aug 01, 2018

by DaveAshley »

If the first three numbers are 389, then it dates to about 1963. (Actually, that's what I was guessing before I looked up the serial number.) That's a particularly good era for King.