Available for sale- Horn # 1104
$20,000
Horn 1104 was built in the summer of 2011 for John Cox, the recently retired principal horn of the Oregon Symphony.
John was a regular visitor to the Bloomington area, coming often to visit old teachers and stopping by my very first shop in Ellettsville to wax philisophical about horn and work on tweaking his horn. We never missed a chance to get together and eat at the nearby chinese buffet and try new bells or chase some minute technical change that he wanted. I learned quite a bit from my 15 year relationship with him and this horn, and I’m very pleased to be able to help him find a new home for this horn.
This horn is built around a Meinlschmidt valve section with 25mm valves and a 20mm change valve. The bell tail is, as usual, a Sandner no 84 and the current flare is a heat treated spun no.3. The slides are 10% nickel silver and the rest of the horn is yellow brass with the exception of a leadpipe which I replaced last week with corrosion resistant gold brass.
John gave me what I still consider to be the most meaningful compliment to date regarding this horn. He told me that between the horn being easy and enjoyable to play, he felt like he extended his career by at least 5 years and had great fun doing it. He helped me understand the value that a great horn can have for a player and that gave me a lot of motivation over the years to keep pushing for better and better playing experiences.
This horn has two especially notable design elements which are a single piece Bb return and a single piece long F branch. In the days before CAD and 3d printed jigs, I bent these parts entired freehand, with some general type wooden circles and other jigs that I had learned to make from Rick Seraphinoff. Bending these in a single piece made a lot of sense to me then, and I was willing to accept the struggle of pulling it off for what I assumed was a significant improvement in quality. As I developed more mastery of joint work, this type of bending became less important, especially given how difficult this was to pull off. I’m quite proud of my ability to do this kind of multiplane freehand bending, but the cost in time was simply unsustainable and so after 2015, I moved to two piece branches. This horn stands as an increasingly rare example of some of my best early work.
The condition of this horn is excellent. John was very good about keeping his horns in good shape and had a good understanding of the mechanics of the valves. They are lightning fast with great compression and have many decades of life left in them.
I replaced the leadpipe last week (right), the original pipe had some damage which was repaired moderately well, but with a fresh updated pipe, this horn plays beautifully.
The only visible doot is a very minor doot (left). There are no visible thin spots or heavily repaired areas.
The finish of the horn is excellent with no visible pitting from water spots or early red dot.
If you have any questions or are interested in purchasing this horn, please reach out via email (jacob@medlinhorns.com) or text: (919-5eight4-528seven)
This horn is being offered as is with no trial period and no case. Prefence will be given to folks that are local (relatively speaking) and willing to come, check over the horn, and test it in the shop before taking it home. These horns are very rarely available used and there will likely be a lot of interest so we will do our best to answer all of your questions and help to quickly place this horn.