Old Schilke E3L - thoughts?

[jshaps94]

Hello! First post!
I have just been offered to buy a silver plated Schilke E3L with what appears to be a raw brass leadpipe (looks like a replacement) from ~1963 from someone I play in an orchestra with. He is a french horn player so isn't as familiar with trumpets.
I have played it a few times and the Eb bell / slides are mainly good (intonation of D on the stave is VERY flat, but maybe that is me). I have a few concerns and hoped for some help from the group:
- The instrument is quite tarnished and clearly hasn't been wonderfully maintained for a while, but it also probably hasn't been played much for some time. Is there any risk from this (e.g. red rot)?
- The lead pipe brace connecting the first valve to the lead pipe (very short, not the long one towards the mpc receiver) needs resoldering to the valve block. Is this a big job?
- The Eb bell is probably 'real' beryllium and has a few small dings in it. Can these be ironed out, or is beryllium risky to work on?
- There is only 1 tuneable bell with a "B" marking near where it attaches to the instrument, plus a ~12cm long crook for moving to D (and a set of slides for the valves). I haven't used the crook. Will this produce a poor tone? If so, does anyone have any recommendations of where I could get a D bell in the long term instead?

I'm aware these are expensive instruments new (~£4.5k these days) but at 63 years old I have no idea how much it could be worth - I don't want to walk into this too blindly and buy an instrument with lots of problems!

[huntman10]

As to the 4th line D, that is a 5th harmonic, the bane of Eb horns! But should be manageable on a Schilke. What you have there is an assemblage of parts on an E3L chassis.

Add to the nondescript parts the likelihood of red rot in places, I would almost prefer a Yamaha 761 or 6610 over that. I have had Schilkes that appeared much better than that with redrot in multiple sites.

It might be a great player, but the odds are against it. Maybe bring along someone who has experience with high trumpets, if possible.
_________________
huntman10
Collector/Player of Fine (and not so fine) Brass Instruments including
Various Strads, Yammies, Al Hirt Courtois, Schilkes,
Selmer 25, Getzen Eternas, Kanstuls (920 Pic, CG)
Martin Custom Large Bore, Lots Olds!, Conns, etc.

[Christian K. Peters]

Hello,
Welcome to the TH. I would like to know the age by serial number first. Your description sounds like a way to get into a Schilke for a decent price. Can't comment until you have played it. Good luck.
_________________
Christian K. Peters
Schilke Loyalist since 1976

[chase1973]

The "B" stands for beryllium/copper. If your horn is from 1963, the beryllium bell is not. It would be after that as the beryllium bells began circa 1970.