Many orchestral pieces call for trumpet in A and with this feature the player could simply turn the dial and play the orchestral scores with ease.įinally we had figured out more about our instrument and the hunt to identify the mystery trumpet was finally over. This means that players could switch the key of the trumpet from Bb to A. A very cool feature of this model is that it has the Bb to A rotary change mechanism. It was manufactured only between 1928-1932, meaning our trumpet is between 85-89 years old. The Conn 56b is also known as the “New Era” trumpet. Therefore, we discovered that we had a Conn 56b on our hands with a missing serial number, perhaps lost during some buffing of the instrument. Also, very faintly stamped on the second valve we found a letter “B.” At first we were unsure if it was just a scratch, but after finding a forum post of somebody with a Conn 56b with the same letter in the same place, it helped us to determine our model. The Bb to A rotary change mechanism is also unique, as mentioned earlier, but on ours it is also located in a different place than other Conn models with the mechanism. Some other features that led to our belief that it is a Conn 56b are that two of the slides near the bell end of the trumpet are reversed in a way that is unusual for a trumpet. These people had to add the feature on by themselves after purchasing it.
We decided to find out what the Conn community had to say, and found that many people’s Conn 56b trumpets came like this. Our trumpet was missing a ring on the third tuning slide, which is used while playing to adjust certain notes to be more in tune. However, there were some slight differences.
We began comparing ours to all the trumpets on the list, and the Conn 56b resembled ours the most. Fortunately, the Conn Loyalist website has a picture list of all of Conn’s trumpets.
Find pictures of every Conn trumpet within our time frame (1915-1962) and compare it to the one that we have at the museum. That’s when we decided to take another approach. It was missing.What next?Īfter performing even further research on the Conn Company, Conn trumpets, and the history and trends of trumpets in general, it all led to dead ends. Ours was printed on the bottom of the Bb-A rotary change mechanism, which is a unique and special feature not found on most trumpets. After looking deeper into Conn trumpet serial numbers, it was explained on every website that the serial number is always printed on the second valve of the trumpet, but that is not where we found our number. That would mean that our trumpet could not be older than 1915, which did not add up with our serial number. Conn retired and sold it to Carl Greenleaf in 1915. Conn Ltd.” However, the company did not change its name to this until after C. As cool as it would be to have a 122-126 year old trumpet in good condition in our collection, it ended up being too good to be true.Īfter some research on the Conn Company, we learned that it was founded in 1876 by Charles Gerard Conn, and it went by various names, mainly “Conn” or “Conn Instruments.” Our trumpet is engraved with “C. What we thought was the serial number on the trumpet was “33351,” and according to the Conn Loyalist webpage and the Conn-Selmer site, this would date the horn sometime between 1891-1895. We began the identifying process by searching up the serial number on Conn trumpet databases. ” This gave us a start on our hunt: it had to be at least manufactured before 1962. This trumpet was used in the cadet band before they changed to a drum and trumpet band. Porter’s trumpet sold to Sydney Horton in 1962. It arrived with a small tag that gave us just enough information to launch our investigation. One of the most important things to remember when donating items to any heritage organization is to provide as much background information on the item or items as possible. USA,” on the bell and surrounding the text is a gorgeous floral pattern. Last year, we acquired a trumpet in our collection as a part of some old Wolfville School memorabilia. Our very first blog post of the 2017 season is upon us! Lauryn Wadden, an aspiring music teacher and the museum’s Heritage Interpreter (seriously if you haven’t been given a tour by her you should come right now and get one!) has written this interesting piece about one of our newest acquisitions to the permanent collection!Ī Sleuth in Action: Solving the Trumpet Mystery
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