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The Unusual Trumpet in the Nürnberg Transport Museum

The Unusual Trumpet in the Nürnberg Transport Museum

Three-coil trumpet with circular body, brass; bell diameter: 9,7cm (3 3/4″) body diameter (external): 24,5cm (9 1/2″) no mouthpiece (Photograph: Helmut Thiel, Nürnberg).

The postal history department of the Nürnberg transport museum probably has Germany’s largest collection of sheet music related to the mail. There is also a small collection of post horns. I was therefore very grateful for the kind invitation extended to me by Helmut Thiel, head of the postal history department, as I started gathering material for my book on the post horn in the autumn of 1983. Mr. Thiel gave me all his support for two days and, being an excellent amateur photographer, took photographs of all the instruments in his post horn collection for me.

The collection consists mainly of horns from the Royal Bavarian Post Office. It also contains a trumpet with three circular coils which has bell and mouthpipe lying in the same straight line — unlike the well known coiled trumpets known as Jägertrompeten. At some time this instrument must have been mistaken for a post horn and so found its way into the Nürnberg collection.

Unfortunately, as can be seen from the photographs, the trumpet was so badly dented that I could not play it so as to establish its pitch. Going purely on calculations based on the measurements the tube length must be approximately 240 to 250 cm (94-98″), corresponding to a pitch of C or B in modern concert pitch.

The instrument carries no marks to indicate maker or date. Since none of the recognised trumpeters and musicologists I have asked, including Edward Tarr, has ever seen such an instrument before, I can only hope that perhaps someone reading this article will be able to supply further information on this unusual trumpet.

Brass Bulletin 52, IV / 1985 pages 72–73

All content is protected by copyright © Brass Bulletin 1985–2026

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