Spectacular original vintage 1935 King Silvertone Artist Special trumpet & caseWant to turn heads on your next gig? You will with this! Very rare 1935 King Silvertone Artist Special trumpet. I would guess there are very few of these around - considering the cost new was $200. A 1935 Ford V-8 coupe was $495!This trumpet is gold plated and has the sterling silver bell. The bell rim and interior of the bell are gold plated. The sterling mark is on the underside of the bell. My guess is this horn was used for a short time, then put away. The valve compression is excellent (on 2 and 3 - I couldn\'t check 1). Valves are fast and smooth. I\'ve given the horn a basic clean and polish.The new owner will need to have a couple of things attended to. The 1st slide, both tuning slides (there\'s a forward one and the one further back that the forward slide fits into) and the \"dump\" slide at the end of the 3rd slide are stuck. The 2nd and the 3rd have been pulled and greased. There is no third valve finger ring. There are a couple of very minor dents: one on the 2nd valve slide, on the top of the bell near the mouthpiece receiver, and on on the top of the bell near the engraving. I\'ve owned a lot of horns and this horn is a player, but also quite possibly one of the most beautiful horns I\'ve found. Condition-wise it\'s one step away from what it was when it left the music shop in 1935. Comes with the original case which is in very good condition and doesn\'t smell (which is always a bonus!) Also included is the original King 11M mouthpiece which is in very good condition. Questions gladly answered. Thanks for looking and offerding.
On Nov-25-14 at 10:02:35 PST, seller added the following information:
Several people have asked me about the bore size, which I measured at the 2nd valve slide and found to be .444. King catalogs list the bore at .448. Many people are under the impression these horns with small bores produce the \"peashooter\" sound and hard to blow. That\'s not the case from my experience with them, and I\'ve had several small bore horns that were great playing instruments. Two of the greatest trumpet players of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong and Bunny Berigan, played what would now be called small bore instruments. I found a lot of very useful information about this at \"robbstewart.com\" (he is a great repairman and knowledgeable brass historian), and this is his observation (that\'s my underlining on the last sentence): \"I’m quite sure to an accomplished player there is a perceptible difference between two trumpets of different bore sizes that are otherwise identical. However, I’ve had more than one good trumpet player tell me that they couldn’t use a Conn Connstellation model trumpet because the bore is too large and they don’t have the endurance they have on a medium large bore trumpet. In reality, this and the famous Conn 22B have a bore measurement of .438” which is smaller than almost all trumpets models being made today. I assume the perception of a large bore is both visual (the bell rim diameter is larger than almost all other trumpets at 5 1/8” and the curve of the main tubing is very wide) and acoustical in that most of Conn’s designs from that time period were surprisingly efficient. Other players perceive these trumpets as very easy to play and, as such, find endurance on them excellent. It would seem to me that the most rational approach to trumpet (cornet) design would be to find the instrument that works best for the player and his circumstances without regard to measurements.\"
