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1974 Olds Custom High Range (CHR) P-12H Bb trumpet
1974 Olds Custom High Range (CHR) P-12H Bb trumpet
Email us about this trumpet - centexbrass@gmail.com
This is a 1974 Olds Custom P12-H High Range (CHR)model trumpet in excellent condition. This almost 50 year old trumpet appears to have been stored in a plastic bag in its case for its entire life. Silver plating is excellent with no evidence of any use. Slides are smooth. Valve plating and compression are excellent. Comes with a leather covered custom hard case that exudes the highest quality that Olds put forward in this entire package. Original paperwork and Olds 7C mouthpiece included.
This model trumpet is among the rarest of Olds models. Even though these were among the last instruments made by Olds, they were made in such small numbers that they are hard to find. While there is a widely held belief that quality suffered near the end of the Olds production, the professional level horns such as this one was still made to the highest quality standards.
This model does not appear in any of the known Olds catalogs. This specialty horn has an unusual design intended to facilitate high-register playing, improve slotting in the upper register. This CHR was touted as a revolutionary new trumpet that delivers the cleanest, clearest high notes ever. The quite unusual bell remains very narrow until the very end, then flaring abruptly to a full 5" bell rim. The horn does not have a standard tuning slide, but rather tuning is achieved by a tuning bell design. The mouthpiece receiver goes straight into the third valve casing. This eliminates the unevenness in the inner taper that normally occurs at the main tuning slide, and also provides additional tapered tubing where effective adjustments could be made to improve slotting of individual notes.
Olds was sued by Yamaha in the 1970s in defense of a tuning bell patent (U.S. Patent 3,257,135) that had been secured by Renold Schilke and given to Yamaha. It is supposed that the Olds CHR model ceased production after only a couple of years, as a result of this lawsuit. The exact number of horns made during this time period is not known, but as specialty horns go, very few were made.
Features:
- Silver plated finish
- 5 inch tuning bell
- .460 bore
- Narrow bell tube with wide flare at the end of the bell
- First slide saddle and third slide finger ring with screw stops.
- Custom Olds case
1974 Olds Custom High Range (CHR) P-12H Bb trumpet
The following are comments written by R. Dale Olson, Director of Research at Olds in the 1960's and a consultant to Olds at the time the CHR was developed:
"The Reynolds ERA and Olds CHR were virtually identical horns, both of which I was intimately involved with in conjunction with Bill Cardwell. In fact, both Bill and I received royalty checks for every horn sold. The full history is rather complex and lengthy, but clearly available in my memory. Some of the materials now in my library will, some day, be included in a book on Olds I sporadically work on. They contain many communications between CMI and both Bill and me, our original contract, and even the communication from Bill to CMI to terminate the contract due to low production by CMI, that failed to reach minimums defined within the contract.
As brief background, Bill and I were very close friends with whom I engaged in research for about 20 or so years. The ERA ("Extended Range Altissimo") and CHR ("Custom High Register"), two absolutely terrible horn names created by the CMI marketing people, were both based upon Bill's 1970 U.S. Patent (#3,505,181), 21 April 1970. This patent is highly (repeat highly) important in the 20th. Century literature related to brass instrument technology, although virtually unknown by most players and teachers, and even the "gurus".
Perhaps the most informative current book on musical instrument acoustics is by Murray Campbell and Clive Greated, of University of Edinburgh. Campbell and Greated cite Bill's patent as being of considerable importance.
Both the CHR and ERA were, in totality, very low production and, as a result, are today rare."
A review of the CHR trumpet by Alan Rouse of Olds Central can be found at this link:
http://rouses.net/trumpet/reviews/chr.htm" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Olds Custom CHR Trumpet
reviewed by Alan Rouse