Expert: Kenton Scott - 9/23/2011

Question
I traded an old banjo for this trombone. There is an ornate engraving on it, says "Carl Fischer Artist."
I found a number etched into in multiple times. I'm not sure it it's a serial, or if a previous owner did it. It's 69573. I'm interested in finding out when it was made. I've looked everywhere, and I found other models of Carl Fischer trombones, but not the Artist.

Answer
Artist was one of the many model names that Fischer used on the instruments sold by the company.  I've seen the model name used on everything from cornets to helicons.  They didn't make their own brass instruments, but purchased them from a variety of makers and then put their own logos on them.  The number on your horn sounds like it could be a serial number, but that really doesn't do us any good as there doesn't seem to be any consistency to the numbers.