Great vintage 16M LW slide nickel silver single .509 bore and 16 bell. 35576 puts this around 1978, This was a closet queen and had one original owner. The horn is in immaculate condition, no dents or evidence of dents. Only some patina on the bell. I don’t think this horn was even played much and his friend of 35 yrs whom I acquired it from, never knew he played trombone. Comes in original 70s bach case.

Asking $1250

This may well be the original bell. Most 16M bells were not marked as such. The were usually stamped with just "16" or "16G" on the bell. But they had a different neckpipe than the true 16 bells.

This is the oldest 16m I’ve come acrossed. Do you know when Bach started the “Watrous” horn?

[quote="Jpechroer"]This is the oldest 16m I’ve come acrossed. Do you know when Bach started the “Watrous” horn?[/quote]
I've seen others around '78, and owned one with a 34*** serial number, but nothing before that. Makes sense marketing-wise - took them a couple years after the Manhattan Wildlife Refuge albums.

[quote="greenbean"]The were usually stamped with just "16" or "16G" on the bell. But they had a different neckpipe than the true 16 bells.[/quote]
I don't think that's true. Certainly the one I had (stamped 16) used the standard #411 neckpipe as used on everything from the 6vii to the dual-bore 16. It seems the change to the more open 16M neckpipe (somewhere in the early 80s) coincides with the '16M' stamping change, though Bach being Bach I'm sure there are exceptions.

(Having less of a choke in the neckpipe isn't necessarily unreasonable with the larger slide, but the main source of weirdness is the stupidly small model 6 crook - .522" ID - which they've never changed. Having rebuilt one out of interest, it's the undersized crook that makes the famously short stock leadpipe seem... interesting. A longer, more stable leadpipe makes the stuffiness of the stock crook less apparent, but if you put on a crook that matches the outer slide ID - as was the case on MtV/Peppy horns - the stock leadpipe actually works very well... flexible and quite open, sure, but not too quirky... almost like Watrous' actual horn might have been a good design? That's not to say there aren't stock 16Ms that play great but - a bit like the 42 valve - there were some questionable parts bin decisions over the years.)

FWIW, I have a Bach 16 duo-bore slide #34527. (all brass)

I got the horn second hand at Dillons many years ago, and it came with an old 16M bell.

Don't know if there had been a switch in bells at any point, because there's no serial number on the bell. But it's not made of 'brittle-brass'. It's not a light-weight bell.

FWIW, I have a fairly recent newly bought 16M silver slide that I use all the time. (the old brass one is too friggin' heavy for me and I like the single bore slide

[quote="greenbean"]This may well be the original bell. Most 16M bells were not marked as such. The were usually stamped with just "16" or "16G" on the bell. But they had a different neckpipe than the true 16 bells.[/quote]

I guess I can forget everything I thought I knew about 16/16M's!... Sheesh... sorry.

Sold!!