TromboneChat

Looking to get info on selmer bolero models. I have a bolero bell section with a valve and a shires slide and it plays amazing!!! Such a great horn, curious about specs of the valve tubing. My crappy calipers says it’s .515 but that seems a little small, and to be honest it does feel a little small compared to my 3BF. My slide is a .508 - .525 which would be a little weird if the valve was smaller than my bottom tube. I tried my friends MG .500 slide on it and it was killer, but so is that whole horn. Also, the bell rim seems a lot thicker than my 3B and the bell is definitely on the heavier side. Curious about others peoples impressions on the Selmer Bolero.

I picked up a Bolero for a great price about 5 years ago at a shop outside of Philly as I wanted a straight horn to compliment my (at the time) main Yamaha 356R for wedding gigs. Loved the way it played, very responsive and free blowing.

Ended up selling it after I picked up my current main horn (Rath R2F convertible) and didn't use it nearly as much. It deserved to be played tho I do miss the Bolero sometimes.

I was blessed to have a friend gift me his father's 1954 Conn 6H so I now have another straight horn for backup.

Only Boleros l ever tried were light as a feather and thin as foil. They played fantastic and l wish I'd bought one.

I have a Bolero w/ F attachment and it’s on the heavier side as well. I don’t know where my calipers are so I can’t take any measurements, but I’m not sure they would be that helpful anyway. My stock Bolero and Largo outer slides are both in the ballpark of horns with lightweight slides, but have oversleeves . The slide tubes must be thinner to get it down to those weights, and they also don’t have ferrules connecting the crook to the tubes, the crook is expanded at the end to fit over the tubes (and the Largo looks like it has an oversized crook, but is 88H width). The bell section seems the opposite and at least the tuning slide tubing is quite a bit thicker than anything I have to compare it to.

My Bolero and Largo both have leadpipes with undersized receivers (Doug Elliott’s s shanks fit perfectly) and getting something that fits properly has made a huge difference. They’re also good leadpipes so I don’t want to replace it with another one with a standard receiver.

My Bolero also has gold brass tubes on the outer slide, valve tubing, and neckpipe. I have no idea if these were options or if the standard construction changed over the years. I really wish we had a Selmer serial registry to date them.

Rob Stoneback out of eastern PA has played one for years.
You can hear him as a bandleader and I think in a few sections out of New York?

The Bolero is definately a 'sleeper' horn.

The worst thing it has going for it is that it looks like a King 3B, because for my money they're in a different leauge..
Here's some 70's catalouge stuff

BellEnd

Where did you find those catalogs? I had a very hard time finding anything about selmer trombones pre-connselmer. Never knew there was a bass trombone model, i love my selmer alto and curious if there was anything about an alto trombone being made

Elow wrote: ↑Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:58 am Where did you find those catalogs? I had a very hard time finding anything about selmer trombones pre-connselmer. Never knew there was a bass trombone model, i love my selmer alto and curious if there was anything about an alto trombone being made

I picked them up from a music store in the late 1970's .

Unfortunately that's all I have .

BellEnd