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Cornet, B-flat, A

Maker C. G. Conn

Distributor C. G. Conn

Date1892 ca.

Place MadeElkhart and Worcester, Indiana and Massachusetts, United States, North America

ModelWonder Solo 2

Serial No.33240

SignedEngraved on bell within a pot-shaped shield: MADE / BY / CONN / ELKHART, IND / WORCESTER / MASS.

[“Worcester, Mass” is cramped into the signature design, as if an after-thought or later addition.]

MarkingsStamped on valve casings, respectively: 1 2 3
Stamped on second valve casing: 0 / 33240 / PAT. JUNE / 15, 1886
Stamped on second valve casing and valve spring barrels: 33240
DescriptionAfter nearly a decade of production, the Wonder solo cornet remained Conn's most popular and presumably most profitable model. The reconfiguration of the third valve tubing, the leadpipe, bracing changes, and the addition of a marking rod to designate the pull for the key of A are the most obvious upgrades made to this Wonder model, in Conn's quest for the “perfect cornet.”

Silver-plated brass; gold-wash bell interior and highlighting in the area of the bell engraving, ferrules, and top and bottom valve caps; mother-of-pearl finger buttons. Removable leadpipe. Three tower-spring pistons with three unequal guide pins each. Double water key.

Finger-piece and thumb-piece at main tuning slide (second bow) for tuning based on US Patent 442,955 from December 16, 1890, granted to C. G. Conn and William F. Seidel.

DimensionsHeight: 326 mm
Bell diameter: 125 mm
Bore (second valve slide): 10.67 mm
ProvenanceArne B. Larson Collection (by exchange), Vermillion, South Dakota, 1990.
Published ReferencesSabine Katharina Klaus, Trumpets and Other High Brass: A History Inspired by the Joe R. and Joella F. Utley Collection. Volume 4: The Heydey of the Cornet (Vermillion, SD: National Music Museum, 2022), p. 90

Margaret Downie Banks, Elkhart's Brass Roots: an Exhibition to Commemorate the 150th Anniversary of C. G. Conn's Birth and the 120th Anniversary of the Conn Company (Vermillion: The Shrine to Music Museum, 1994), p. 29.

Credit LineArne B. Larson Collection (by exchange), 1990

Object number02294

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