Also, on the two pages listing prices, the larger has new, higher price lists pasted on. It is a larger format, measuring 5' by 11' and the smaller is 3 1/4' by 6'. The second catalog also states a copyright date of 1925 and has the same content as the first with two differences.

This was copied by all the major US band instrument makers as well as Olds' former employee Earl Williams. All the trombones offered in the first two catalogs have tuning in the hand slide, which was a new idea when Olds introduced his first trombones and was only a slight modification of one of the patented design features. These also represent some of the bore and bell size combinations available. The earlier trombones that I feature elsewhere on my site utilize nickel silver for the brace flanges only. The catalog describes the 'braces and hand grips' are made of nickel silver. He had enough success to purchase the rights to the 1912 trombone design patent from George Riblet so that he could incorporate these features in his own instruments.īy 1925, he had developed at least 5 slide bore sizes and several bell sizes. We can surmise that Olds had some success in his plating business which he had started 24 years before that date and was likely repairing and experimenting with brass instruments during those years. The first catalog states that Olds had set out to produce instruments 12 years earlier, or 1913. Please let me know if you have any early Olds literature. I have never seen any earlier promotional literature but I would assume that they would have, at a minimum, printed a price and/or model list previous to this.

These are likely the first three full catalogs published by Olds (click links below to download.

1974 olds ambassador trumpet value