Unsigned Bb Cornet with 4 Allen Valves

Here I'm presenting another very unusual cornet from Mark Elrod's collection.  This story has to be very short, because we know very little about the origins of this cornet.  There are two other, very similar, Bb cornets known.  One is in the Utley Collection of the National Music Museum.  That has the same distinctive bell flare and garland and flat windway valves, although with top action levers.  The other, with side action as seen here, is pictured on Horn-u-Copia.  Each has the same fourth valve for changing pitch from Bb to A and the Utley example also has an alternate mouthpipe to shorten it to C.   Elrod's example appears never to have had this feature.  

While it is thought that these cornets were made in Boston, where Allen, Richardson and Lehnert made very similar rotary valves or Philadelphia, where Henry Lehnert continued them in production, it is possible that they were made in Europe.  There are a few examples of unsigned instruments that appear to be European copies of Boston made Allen valve instruments, but again, this is all speculation, since we don't have any hard evidence.  If you have any clues, please let me know.   The particulars of the valve design seen here are most similar to a unique silver soprano made in New York by J. Lathrop Allen in 1861. The page featuring that instrument describes the valve details more thoroughly.

This cornet was acquired in quite good condition and already was a very good player.  Unfortunately, it had a cheap nickel plated finish applied at some time in the distant past.  Once that was done, the dent removal was not at all difficult.  

All of the slides had to be rebuilt to make the tubes parallel and appear as they were originally.  Two of the valve levers had also been repaired, including unsightly struts to keep the inadequate repair from falling apart.  The lyre mount was clearly a later addition.  Once back together, it is still a very good playing cornet.

The overall length of this cornet is 12 7/8" (10 5/8" from bell rim to bell curve), the bell rim diameter is 4 1/8" and the bore the valves measures .465".