Pawn shop score!

[area51recording]

I decided the other day to buy a trumpet, an instrument I played for 20 years but not for about the past 17 or so, as i gave it up for the tenor. i went looking in pawn shops for maybe a used Bundy or the like, and in my last stop came across a Bach case that contained a Bach Stradivarius model 25 (large bore) and silver to boot. The horn was black with tarnish and to my amazement had a tag price of $250. (they had a chinese made POS that they wanted $350 for- because it was shinier) I bought the thing for $225, took it home and spent 10 min with some Tarnex and ended up with a beautiful silver Bach Strad w/maybe 3-4 TINY dents, all of its silver and a really nice player too, mostly because these guys didn't know what they had. Dosen't happen that way (at least to me) very often. :D

[Martin Williams]

Good job!! My flugelhorn was a similar buy about a year ago. Tarnished to hades and back, but once polished it was basically mint! I got it for $190, they had it listed in the place at $230.

Martin Williams

[sopsax]

Is that all??? I thought you were gonna tell us that when you polished the horn, a genie emerged in a puff of smoke (!) and granted you three wishes.

[Martin Williams]

No, that only happened with the piccolo trumpet, and I then met my now fiancee.

Martin Williams

[Soontir2432]

You got a damn good deal there!

Now if only I can get my butt to check the local pawn shops... :roll: :)

[area51recording]

I hear ya! I never EVER do it, but my search got spurred by a project I'm working on, where I'm recreating a big band chart, "Begin the Beguine". I played and recorded the sax parts (2 alto and 2 tenor) and figured I'd do the brass w/sounds from my synths. The first note of the trumpet track told me it was not going to work. Cheese City compared to the sax tracks!! Around the 3rd or 4th attempt at getting something to work I thought, "this is totally lame. You played trumpet for 20 years, just go get a horn!" So off I went, found my Bach in the 10th place I visited, and for the last few days I 've been getting reaquianted w/Mssrs. Schlossberg and Arban. Should be ready to cut the trax Sun or Mon. Anyway I'm gonna visit those places more often in the future for sure.

[area51recording]

OK... been playing the trumpet for several days now and I've noticed an interesting phenomenon. I find that sometimes on sax, as well as singing, which i do a fair bit of on one of my gigs (solo piano / vocal stuff) it's real easy sometimes to get a little lazy w/your breathing, maybe not supporting as much as I should. With the trumpet the only way it works for me at all is if I absolutely breathe correctly! A few minutes of not supporting properly w/the breath and my chops fall apart! When I transfer this awareness of really making every breath count to my other stuff, tenor, alto , flute, vocals, EVERYTHING works better. It's almost like the trumpet practice is breathing exercise for all the other stuff I play. :D

[CMelodyMan]

Man, how do y'all find such good deals? In every pawn shop I enter when I ask tp see their saxes, and always every one-(including the junky brands) cost $400 or more? What ever happened to the time when you could get a sax from a pawn shop for $100 or less? I mean I can understand that the nice saxes would be $400+ but what about the beat-up, old ones? Shouldn't they be cheaper? Do y'all do a lot of haggling when you're buying an instrument from a pawn shop?

[Bernards20040]

Man, how do y'all find such good deals? In every pawn shop I enter when I ask tp see their saxes, and always every one-(including the junky brands) cost $400 or more? What ever happened to the time when you could get a sax from a pawn shop for $100 or less?

Ebay :x

[area51recording]

Man, how do y'all find such good deals? In every pawn shop I enter when I ask tp see their saxes, and always every one-(including the junky brands) cost $400 or more? What ever happened to the time when you could get a sax from a pawn shop for $100 or less? I mean I can understand that the nice saxes would be $400+ but what about the beat-up, old ones? Shouldn't they be cheaper? Do y'all do a lot of haggling when you're buying an instrument from a pawn shop?

In my case I usually don't have this kind of luck, but I think it was a case where they honestly didn't know what they had, as it was tarnished absolutely black and lookin' OLD compared to the crap horn, which was pristine in appearence but really worthless. just right place at the right time I guess.

[Radjammin]

contained a Bach Stradivarius model 25 (large bore) and silver to boot.

Um What's a Bach 25? Do you mean a 43? The only models I know of is 43(large bore) and 37(Medium Bore)

I am not saying your wrong, I just don't know of this horn. I have never own a Bach so I could be wrong.

Maybe it's one of there intermediate models? T201 or whatever?

[area51recording]

Nope, it's a Strad, model 25, which I believe refers to the bell type.

[area51recording]

Also the number in the model dosen't refer to the bore size. I owned a model 43 back in the day and it was a medium large bore horn.

[Martin Williams]

yeah the 25 is a reference mainly to the bell. Somewhere on the valves is marking the denotes the bore size, like M, or ML, etc. The leadpipe also has an Identifiying number aomwhere on bachs I believe, But Dont remember. Its been a while since I had a bach, sold Mine in favor of the Getzen I have now.

Back bell came in a large number of sizes including the 25, 37, 43, and 73 bell, and others

[usda]

The local pawnshop guy looks up prices on the internet...looks especially close at ebay. He does his best guess on what he sees...but these guys have so lo-balled the fellow who is pawning his axe...that whatever they ask...you can always lo-ball them back...and they still will make money.

Never pay a pawnshops up front price unless you are sure they have goofed big time. The 'little ole lady or frail looking old guy...they wouldn't be in the business if they didn't have larcney in their hearts.'

I automatically cut prices in half and work down from that. If that doesn't fly put $20 down to hold it and go in a few days later and argue with them again.