Finke alto trombone

[heinzgries]

i have bought a used Finke alto trombone.Some may have reservations about Finke, perhaps about their sackbuts.
But this is an first class alto. Yellow brass bell 180 mm and yellow brass tuning slide. Nickel silver outerslide with yellow brass bow, bore 12,5 mm. It had a good 7 th position and the lines up are in tune. The sound is comparable
with the Conn alto. The leadpipe receiver is a bit bigger than a small shank, more european or old german trombone shank size.

[Neo Bri]

I don't know anything about the company, but I'm always interested in learning more about more altos. These days I play alto more than anything else. Where are these made? What's the story? Why the possibly bad reputation?

[heinzgries]

I don't know anything about the company, but I'm always interested in learning more about more altos. These days I play alto more than anything else. Where are these made? What's the story? Why the possibly bad reputation?

Helmut Finke is a brass instrument maker in germany since 1950. In the 1960th Finke was the first who builds
sackbuts exactly according to the specifications of the instruments in german museums. But with all the
intonation problems of such old trombones. He built them as a low budget instrument for german church music ensembles called "Posaunenchor". This was the only reason why Finke got some bad reviews. Only for his sackbuts. Wrongly in my opinion. His sackbuts had the same intonation problems as their role models. Otherwise, Finke builds first-class brass instruments. His french horns in particular are played by the best horn players in the world.
Today his son Johannes Finke leads the company.
https://finkehorns.de/home/

[Neo Bri]

Thank you for the info!

[Basbasun]

Finkes early sackbuts hade intonation problems, as heinzgries mentioned. I played Finke sackbuts in the 60th. Latter Finke made "better" sackbuts. Today all sackbuts are modernized and have better intonation. Finkes trombones are usually good horns.

[LeTromboniste]

I beg to differ concerning sackbuts. I have never seen a Finke that is an exact museum copy. Even the 60s and 70s models I've seen or tried were quite modernised both in features and in building technique. I don't think blaming the museum originals for the poor result is fair. Some makers today make near-exact copies of museum originals that are extremely good, and even less-exact copies by Egger and Meinl (which constitute the bulk of the sackbuts currently in use) are both closer to museum originals and much, much better instruments than any Finke sackbut I've seen.

That being said I wouldn't assume anything about their modern trombones from their sackbuts. Making good trombones doesn't mean you automatically know how to make good sackbuts and vice versa.

[Basbasun]

I have tested the Finke sackbuts own by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. They are good. Not anything like the ones I played in the 70th.

[mstromba]

Hello,
just curios, but do you still own this Alto trombone. Because I found it with exact the same picture in the Finke Website.I woild to know If it ist worth trying.
Best regards

[heinzgries]

yes. after i have bought it, i used the picture from the Finke website for my posting here. Perhaps they have forgotten to remove the trombone from der catalog, or they have more that one used alto for sale.