subject:
What is the purpose of these coins?
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Alan Cole wrote:
1. Adds thickness to valve levers that have worn down thin -- prevents
such wear on newer valve levers.
2. Provides for lengthening the levers to accommodate players with
shortish fingers.
3. Gives a tactile reminder to keep the fingers appropriately arched so
that the balls of the fingers are in contact with the wide parts of the
valve levers.
4. Silver coins on the valve levers are w-a-a-a-a-y cool !
BTW, I always thought the de riguer part was using older coins of genuine
silver (staying away from those newer, base-metal coins). If so, that
pretty much rules out using USA coins dated the same as the year the horn
was made, except for pre-1964 horns. Also, the way I heard it is that the
date on the coins is supposed to match the birth-year of the horn player --
which also rules out USA silver coins except for folks already well into
middle-age & beyond. I am not familiar with Liberty Head dimes; don't the
USA horn folks usually go for Mercury dimes? (Might be 2 different names
for the same thing, I don't know.) However that may be, any way you shake
it silver coins are way cooler than those sissy concave finger buttons --
at least among the rank amateur horn crowd. (Don't know about the
professionals, though.)
-- Alan Cole, rank amateur
McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
*****
Maybe so. I found that the sissy-wimp concave buttons put on my newish 8D
corrected what I (with larger hamlike hands) consider to be a flaw in the
ergonomics of the 8D - my fingers were required to arch all over the place
to play it, since the valve paddles wee slanted down to a severe degree.
Slightly bending up the paddles didn't help a lot, but that slight bend plus
the addition of the curved cups make the *D feel a lot more like my 1952 28D
- where the paddles were almost straight. For large handed persons, I found
this to be just right. I don't think that coins would have done anything
more for me, since they are so thin.
Harris S. Wood
Alexandria, VA 22314
(703) 567-2626
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