Highly Engraved Mammoth Sousaphone - Image 1

Holton's Model 130 Mammoth BB-flat Sousaphone was the centerpiece of a display in the Schmidt Music Company's booth, both in Fort Worth, Texas, as well as in the merchants' arcade at the Davenport, Iowa, Fair, in August 1927. According to a review of the Davenport exhibit, published in The Music Trade Review, 'the entire collection is on a revolving turntable on the stage with flashing colored lights on them to give an adequate impression of the beauty of the individual instruments. The bass horn [this Sousaphone] is said to have cost $2,000 alone to build and contains $800 worth of gold. The engraver worked four months on the elaborate decorations of the bell, which is a work of art in itself.' This Sousaphone was displayed for decades in the company's main office in Elkhorn, prior to its closing in 2008. Henry Hampel and/or Gustav Spath, both engravers at Holton in 1930, may have been responsible for this bell's elaborate decoration.