Hello Trombonechat,

I’m in the market for a 1960-1974 Besson New Standard or B&H Imperial. (Med/Euro Shank Preferred)

I’m not too particular about finish or condition, just looking for a good player. :)

Please let me know if you have one sitting around you would be willing to part with.

Thanks!

Hi I have aMahillon baritone for sale

I have a besson new standard 4 compensating for $2300 with case plus shipping, photos attached. It's had new valve cores installed and playing very well. The solder work has not really been cleaned up, so its not a "looker"

Noah is this a large shank horn?

From that era, it is almost certainly a medium-sized receiver unless it was altered by a tech.

Jim Scott

You say that but there appears to be solder showing under the lead pipe and a student of mine just bought a large shank imperial...

It is currently a large shank receiver, I assume that is a modification. Serial is 615xxx (places it in early 1978 I think). The guts were removed by a tech and the pistons sent to be replated and refit by Zig Kanstul in 2015 (which is why some of the lacquer is burned and the solder not cleaned up)

I suspect the large shank receiver might be original. Check the specs for Denis Wick mouthpieces and it states that the medium (European) shank is for pre-1974 euphoniums. I don't know if there was an overlap.

Cheers

Stewabones43

That's what I get for trying to be brief. For many years the euphoniums had the medium receivers. Like the last post says, they changed to large receivers in the mid-70's, but they also introduced the Sovereign line around the same time. That line of euphoniums seemed to take over, but they did produce the Imperials and New Standards for a while in tandem with the Sovereigns. Most of the euphonium players that I knew back then bought the Sovereigns if they were getting a new horn. I also don't remember seeing large shank New Standards, but I did see a few Imperials (same horn, different names) with the large shank, but that could just be what was sold in my area.

A lot of this gets confusing also because the Besson vs. Boosey names appear on what are essentially the same horns. The 2 companies were separate entities, that merged at some point, so for many years they produced identical horns with one name or the other. A colleague of mine in the orchestra and I both grew up in playing in Salvation Army bands - I was in the US and he was in Canada. I remember almost always seeing euphoniums (and cornets, alto horns, baritones & tubas) with the Besson name on them, and he remembers seeing the Boosey name almost exclusively (plus he calls the alto horns tenor horns). I'm guessing that the company assumed that one name or the other had better name recognition in one market vs. another, so that's what they supplied to those areas.

Our tuba player just picked up a Besson New Standard with the medium shank on a local classifieds site. The horn belonged to Gene Watts at some point, so that makes sense with it probably coming to Canada from the US. There's so much travel and international sales at this point that all of my old assumptions have many exceptions to them now.

Jim Scott