Re: Wondering what year my Buescher tenor was made
I didn't realize that it was an Elkhart horn. The Elkhart horns are unique as far as stencils go.
The Elkhart horns were sort of a collaberation between Conn and Buescher, and were made by both companies, which could be why the Elkhart is the only horn I know of that did NOT follow Buescher's serial number sequence. The Elkhart is one of the earliest stencils. The first Elkharts were Wonder stencils, not New Wonder or True Tone. Apparently Conn had a hard time keeping up with production as they were making horns for many companies. Conn offered Buescher a part of the Elkhart line and Buescher began building Elkhart horns in the early 1920's. Conn never used the same number sequence for their stencil horns. In fact, just about every Conn stencil used a different sequence.
Many people speculate that stencil horns were numbered and engraved by the company the horns were stenciled for. Other people suggest that the horns are numbered and engraved with the stencil company's engraving in the factory where they were made; which I believe is usually the case. My theory is that some of these horns were engraved in house, while others (stencils) were sent to a subsidiary to be engraved. I suspect that in the case of the Elkhart horn, both the Conn and Elkhart models were engraved by the same company; a company which may have been owned by Conn, who engraved and numbered their stencil horns and the Elkhart horns made by Buescher, and possibly a few others. Again, this is just my theory.
Jim
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