Quote from: jnoxon on Jan 20, 2010, 12:36PMCongratulations! Great find! Looks like a very early Williams, with lots of design left overs from the Wallace era. A most excellent horn. Very similar except for the engraving, of the Silver Wallace Williams I have. The tuning in the slide on mine is on the bottom. counterweight, spit valve, etc all the same as my Wallace. So it is a very authentic horn! I would hesitate to call it a model 4 just yet, or at least until you measure the bore. A model 4 would be a .491 bore, a 6 would be a .500, and an 8 would be a .522 bore.
Hard to tell in the photos whether it is Gold plate, or lacquer. But looks to be in fantastic shape. Earl used King cases on about 90% of his horns, and a few Olds cases. This would be from the time frame he and Earl Strickler worked at Olds in Los Angeles Ca. So that may be where some of the Olds cases came from. I am sure he used the engravers from Olds to do that work. Most of his horns from that era were very ornate like this one, or very plain. Does not seem to be much in between on engraving.
I think the mouthpiece might be a Bert Herrick, or a Williams mouthpiece, Earl made a few MP's over the years. Robb Stewart has one with an Ivory rim that Earl did. You might check with Noah Gladstone on the MP he is more famiiar with that than I am. He owns many Herrick MP's and has seen a few Williams MP's and I have only seen one. The 7.5" bell is not necessarily a 4 either, that was pretty average in its day for Earl. His larger bore horns seem to have mostly 8" bells, a few 7.5" bells on .500 bores in that time. It will be interesting to see what the bore size is.
Congratulations are in order, what a great find and a tremendous horn you have there!!!
j
Thanks for calling this morning also.
WOW! Thanks John! That's a ton of info to absorb, and GREAT to know.
OK, so the model number is on hold, till my buddy from our garage (who works for Nascar on weekends - and with the Earnhardt Family on a frequent occasion

) brings his caliber down to my office to measure the bore.
I gave the slide a good clean last night, and found a little more wear on the inners... but once I lubed, the slide moves well. Not a 10, but it moves well. No catches/hang ups, just a slight drag. Felt like too much lube in the drag spot, but removed lube - still drag a little (but still VERY playable).
It slotted GREAT, and had a nice full tone. Notes seemed to pop out pretty easily - I was impressed. I'll drop it off for a chem clean today, after the bore is measured - to determine the model.
Any suggesting from y'all (John N, JohnL, DJ, anyone else) about the finish?? Of course this depends on how things look after the Chem Clean....
Quote from: bonesmarsh on Jan 20, 2010, 01:27PMAttention TTF members--
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1.duck boat
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*****
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Other key words...
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T.