I noticed this up on ebay! Wow! Amazing condition. The last couple I've seen for sale have been completely wrecked. What are the specs on these again?

<LINK_TEXT text="https://www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Magna-B ... SwizVfB5oo">https://www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Magna-Bass-Trombone-Single-Valve-RARE-Mid-Late-60s/193562835436?hash=item2d113e79ec:g:g1gAAOSwizVfB5oo</LINK_TEXT>

I have owned one of these. .536-bore and 10" bell. It was a great sounding horn. Fun to play. The valve was small and not the greatest. The forum member I sold it to replaced it with a Meinlschmidt. Perhaps he will chime in here.

Sounds like it would make a great big band bass, with that smallish bore? Does the 10” bell have its usual widening effect? How effective would it be as a tenor?

They just knocked $300 off the price anyway, I’m almost tempted!

Interesting!

I have a Martin bass that looks close to this one. The only difference is it has a 9" bell and on the bell it says "The Martin" and no "Magna". A feature on my horn is somebody has added a second valve in D to the tuningslide of the attachment and made it a double dependent.

I have used the horn a couple of times in bigbands and the colleges like the sound. It takes large shank mouthpieces. I have used a Hammond 20BL and that works even though the bore is .536

It is a strange horn. If I use a Hammond 12M then I've got a tenor with two valves. As a classical tenor it is great. I have used a Bach 11C with adapter and then I've got a jazz horn that could work on second in a big band, that is if you can stand the 9" bell. That big a bell makes the horn rather mellow.

The only problem with this horn is "it is not the best horn for anything". I have better small bores, better medium-large bores and better basses. If you need to cover a lot of different situations and only can bring one horn then this would be the one to use.

It is a fun horn to play and to sum things up I think it works best as a bass.

/Tom