19th century superbone?

[AtomicClock]

From the Historic Brass Society article "Adolphe Sax: Visionary or Plagiarist?":

Additionally, the execution of legato was not always easy. The valve trombone could definitely not be a substitute for it. Sax claimed to combine the advantages of both instruments in his own version, in which an ordinary tenor trombone is equipped with a larger bell and a valve is placed close to the joint between the bell and slide sections; this extends the instrument’s range in the lower register. The slide section is also equipped with another two or three valves that could be used to facilitate the execution of certain musical passages, especially in the higher register of the instrument. These “new” features could be used either separately or in combination.

...

The slide trombone with three valves was later offered by Besson. The concept of a duplex trombone was reinvented ca. 1970 as the “Superbone” by Ashley Alexander and/or Maynard Ferguson with the Holton Company in the U.S.A.

Who knew!

[jonathanharker]

Who knew!

I did! here's a Conn from 1884.

[NotSkilledHere]

there's been a few different variations of the superbone early on and some still exist today somewhere. but superbones in the way we see it as a standard layout/config was from holton developed with maynard ferguson. all the cheap chinese copies more or less are just variations of that. the Schagerl superbone is another different interpretation of the superbone.