TromboneChat

King 3b Help

Any experts out there on dating King instruments?
I’ve got a 3b Silversonic that has no serial number on the bell section.
The slide has a hard to make out serial which looks to say 389 - - -
I know some people are quite knowledgeable on the engraving styles etc. Any help anyone can offer would be great.
Will post images attached.

HN White + shorter tuning slide puts it between 1960 and 1965.

Thankyou!
I’ve always been a Bach player but this seemed to blow really well. Is there a particular golden era or era to avoid when it comes to King bones?

Kings were excellent through the HN White and King musical instruments days, and still pretty good UMI and Conn-Selmer. King didn’t have a really bad period like Conn did. The golden era is probably mid to late 1930’s - early 1970’s. Your horn is definitely from a good period.

There's no serial on the slide reciever?

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 12:47 pm There's no serial on the slide reciever?

Nope. No serial on it....

Kingbrit wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:31 pm

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 12:47 pm There's no serial on the slide reciever?

Nope. No serial on it....

Huh. May have been replaced. In any case, jealous! That's probably a great horn.

The king 3B is such a good design that it doesn't really matter what era it was made in. Even the newest horns from last year are phenomenal.

If the first three numbers are 389, then it dates to about 1963. (Actually, that's what I was guessing before I looked up the serial number.) That's a particularly good era for King.