Obscure european trombones

[Gedlik]

Often times I browse european markets and see horns with little information(mostly a sentance on horn u copia) about them to find be it a USSR one with confusing set of numbers and cyrylic letters or german ones with the makers name.What is your experience with those types of instruments are they worth their money as they are usually very cheap or are they more of a decoration material?

[BGuttman]

Russian? Indian? Most likely decorative.

German or Czech? Sometimes OK; usually inferior to US brands.

If you've never heard of it and it's cheap, watch out.

[JohnL]

The number of small shops making brass instruments in Germany and adjacent parts of what was then Czechoslovakia during the interwar period is utterly bewildering. Even the "cheap" ones usually exhibit good fit and finish, but they also tend to be somewhat archaic from a design standpoint (soldered-on stockings, small bores, etc.).

[MStarke]

Very generally speaking traditional German trombones are not the best fit for many situations. Also in Germany they are not played very much.

However BGuttman: They are definitely not "usually inferior" to US brands.
Take a good example of a 110 year old Kruspe or Heckel in your hands and you will know. There have been a lot of small workshops with highest quality craftsmanship.

Still it is certainly not totally easy to differentiate bad examples from good ones just based on pictures.
A Conn 44h is always a 44h, with an unmarked German trombone it is more difficult.

[BGuttman]

The issue is that in the inter-war years Markneukirchen was the China of musical instrument manufacture. Interspersed with the few very good brands there were dozens of "cheapie" horns intended to be stencils. That's why I said that most are usually inferior. Certainly Kruspe or Heckel are fine instruments. So are Thein, Laetzsch, Hagmann, and Inderbinen.,

For the OP, if you aren't sure, ask on here. We have a number of people who can tell you instantly whether a label you found is worth considering. Just remember, all the brands I mentioned above come with healthy price tags. There is no free lunch.

[Doug Elliott]

The first time ITF was in Germany, I was really surprised at the number of manufacturers exhibiting that I had not heard of. Almost all of them had trombones that were excellent. The surprising exception was Alexander - I thought their trombones were unplayable. Glassl was there, great altos but I wasn't as impressed with the tenors. I can't remember the names now, but some were one man shops or very small, the equivalent of Williams or Strickler in California.

[JohnL]

I sometimes wonder if some of the unmarked horns are the ones made by apprentices learning the craft.

[Gedlik]

The issue is that in the inter-war years Markneukirchen was the China of musical instrument manufacture. Interspersed with the few very good brands there were dozens of "cheapie" horns intended to be stencils.

Are you talking about weltklang or migma or both?

[MStarke]

The issue is that in the inter-war years Markneukirchen was the China of musical instrument manufacture. Interspersed with the few very good brands there were dozens of "cheapie" horns intended to be stencils. That's why I said that most are usually inferior. Certainly Kruspe or Heckel are fine instruments. So are Thein, Laetzsch, Hagmann, and Inderbinen.,

For the OP, if you aren't sure, ask on here. We have a number of people who can tell you instantly whether a label you found is worth considering. Just remember, all the brands I mentioned above come with healthy price tags. There is no free lunch.

I am not a historian here, but the period you refer to is probably not inter-War, but after WWII, when in Eastern Germany small craftsmen had kind of a difficult time, while there were initiatives to make instruments more available through mass production. Still certainly not comparable to Chinese instruments today. From my knowledge e g Migma instruments were at least partly produced in the background by these small high-level shops, e g Pfretschner.

Czech and Russian instruments are a different story, don't know much about them.

[JohnL]

Just because it has a German name on it doesn't mean it was made in Germany. The area around Kraslice was majority ethnic German until the post-WWII expulsions. Hüttl is a good example; German name, originally located in Kraslice (they would have called it Graslitz); the family was expelled and the company incorpoated into Amati-Denak right after the war.

[RustBeltBass]

The issue is that in the inter-war years Markneukirchen was the China of musical instrument manufacture. Interspersed with the few very good brands there were dozens of "cheapie" horns intended to be stencils. That's why I said that most are usually inferior. Certainly Kruspe or Heckel are fine instruments. So are Thein, Laetzsch, Hagmann, and Inderbinen.,

I’m perplexed by this statement and its inaccuracies.

[blast]

Has anybody here actually been to Markneukirchen ? I have, and I've visited many of the craftsmen and factories based there. Many of these people are the latest of many generations involved in the making of musical instruments. Standards are very, very high. There are traditional designs and cutting edge designs. Individual craftsmen and smaller factories are the biggest in number. The instruments I saw were all beautiful . It is such a shame that these people are dismissed.

[MStarke]

Has anybody here actually been to Markneukirchen ? I have, and I've visited many of the craftsmen and factories based there. Many of these people are the latest of many generations involved in the making of musical instruments. Standards are very, very high. There are traditional designs and cutting edge designs. Individual craftsmen and smaller factories are the biggest in number. The instruments I saw were all beautiful . It is such a shame that these people are dismissed.

Have not been to Markneukirchen, but I own and play multiple trombones from the area, all very very fine instruments.
I guess from the other side of the pond it is probably a bit more difficult to differentiate details of trombone history in Central Europe.

[Posaunus]

For those who are not familiar with Central European geography, Kraslice (now in the Czech Republic) is just across the border from Markneukirchen, in the Saxony region of Germany. They are only about 20 km (12 miles) apart, and apparently share similar lengthy histories of musical instrument making.

On a business trip in ~1989 I visited Rehau, another another small German town nearby (in Bavaria), well-known for its own industry (polymer manufacturing). I heard about the musical instrument craftsmanship in both Markneukirchen and Kraslice, and what a shame it was that they were then separated from West Germany by the "Iron Curtain." I'm happy that that curtain has now disappeared and that the former restrictions are now lifted. Perhaps westerners will learn more about the Markneukirchen area and its 400-year history of crafting high quality brass, woodwind and string instruments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markneukirchen

[Crazy4Tbone86]

Has anybody here actually been to Markneukirchen ? I have, and I've visited many of the craftsmen and factories based there. Many of these people are the latest of many generations involved in the making of musical instruments. Standards are very, very high. There are traditional designs and cutting edge designs. Individual craftsmen and smaller factories are the biggest in number. The instruments I saw were all beautiful . It is such a shame that these people are dismissed.

Absolutely Blast!

I visited Markneukirchen in 1995 and 1999. Both times, the first thing I did was stop by the tourism agency office and they gave me a long list of instrument makers in the immediate area. I spent a couple of days visiting the craftsmen both times I was there. Between both trips, I doubt I even saw half of the brass instrument artisans on the list.

The level of craftsmanship that I saw was exceptional and many of the instruments that I played were fantastic. While some brass shops made an assortment of instruments (trumpets to tubas), other shops focused on one or two types of brass instruments. I also noticed that some of the shops chose to specialize in specific parts or components. There were shops that only made rotary valves and some shops that focused solely on bells.

The only “large” company that I know of from the Markneukichen region is the B&S factory. Jurgens Voigt has a medium-sized company (managed by his daughter now). Other than that, mostly smaller businesses that are run by highly skilled “Meister” craftsmen who have gone through lengthy training and are licensed by the government as experts in building and repairing instruments.

I think that anyone who visits some of the brass instrument makers in Marneukirchen would be impressed. If they pick up some of the instruments and play them, they will be more impressed. There are some highly skilled brass people in that town!