- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
Square peg meets round hole.
In a visit to the web site of the National Music Museum I discovered a rather unusual valve configuration that I had never seen before.
Allen valves were an invention attributed to Joseph Lathrop Allen, a Boston brass instrument maker. He produced his first valves of this type sometime after 1853. The concept was a longer, more slender valve with rectangular-shaped tubing and valve ports.
The smaller diameter valve produced a very quick valve action that, according to the museum’s web site, gained some popularity in America.
Other oddities and rare items worth checking out at the same site:
- Disc valves – which vaguely resemble the Thayer valve
- A nice explanation of double piston valves, which are commonly used on Vienna horns
- The Pressler Gallery – a fine collection of instruments from the court of King Louis XIV
*Image used without permission under the auspices of fair and limited use.
