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Antique Musical Instruments/Question about a trumpet and a cello

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Expert: - 9/30/2011


Question
Kay Cello
Kay Cello  
Hello sir -
I have a couple questions about the quailty of instruments. The two in mind are a trumpet and a cello. I found these on Ebay and Craigslist.

The trumpet is a COUESNON TRUMPET MILITAIRE 27 with the following information on it:
HORS CONCOURS
MEMBRE DU JURY
POUR USSERS D'ARMEE
AMERICAN - PERFECTION
and a pineapple with 27 in it

The cello is a Kay Cello and the only information I have is that it says either 5551-C or 5551-O.
I know Kay is generally not that great.
I also have an old Kay Banjo I'm curious about, but I don't have that information on me.

Thanks so much for any help!

Answer
The Couesnon trumpet circa 1927 should at least originally have been a good player.  

The Kay instruments were primarily aimed at the student market, though I have a 1943 Kay bass that I dearly love.


There is a Kay website at:  http://www.kaybass.com/
Where it appears that yours would date to 1967.  

Antique Musical Instruments

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Kenton Scott

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Please note: My area is BRASS instruments, not other wind, string or percussion instruments. I will provide information on antique, obscure and out of production BRASS instruments. 1) Please don't ask for evaluations, I'll not provide them on this site. 2) I am often asked very similar questions, so I'd invite you to first check on Horn-u-Copia.net. Much of the information I have garnered about this topic, I have posted on this WEB site.

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I perform in several historical bands, have informally researched the area, repair brass instruments, and operate a Forum dedicated to the topic at http://horn-u-copia.net

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B.S. Ed, M.S.

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