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A Civil War era horn of plenty?

A bumpy old tuba a bay area man listed on eBay may be worth thousands. How much did he pay?: $1.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published May 11, 2005

Chris Buchan first saw the tuba at a garage sale. Silk daisies were propped inside the bell and the valves didn't quite work. Buchan snatched it up for $1.

"I'm into music. It was a decoration," said Buchan, 36, who placed the dented, 3-foot-tall horn on top of his stereo cabinet.

Friends pretended to play it, as if they were in the marching band. Later, the tuba became a hanger for an elaborate Halloween mask.

Last week, Buchan decided to scrap the horn using eBay, a virtual clearinghouse of things someone else might want.

In this case, lots of people do.

Buchan's instrument is almost certainly a rare, Civil War era tuba crafted by one of America's best known instrument makers, Isaac Fiske, several experts say.

Brass instrument collectors and scholars across the nation are buzzing about the find. Some say it's akin to uncovering a Salvador Dali painting or a Pablo Picasso sketch.

Its value isn't clear, experts say. But bids on eBay were up to $3,175 as of Tuesday night. A local man has offered Buchan $4,000. Another man told him he would go as high as $61,000 for it. Even the Smithsonian Institution has sent e-mails expressing interest.

"To find an Isaac Fiske anything is pretty rare," said Richard Schwartz, a music theory professor at Virginia State University who studies 19th century instruments. "To find one like this - well, I've never seen one like this."

Buchan's tuba has a fourth valve, where three would be typical for a Fiske. The fourth valve, which has become common on modern tubas, allows the instrument to play lower notes. No known Fiske tuba has a fourth valve, according to Robert Eliason, the former curator of musical instruments for the Henry Ford Museum, who has also written articles about Fiske.

"It's a unique valve setup that's uniquely Fiske," said Eliason, seeing pictures of Buchan's find on eBay Tuesday. "There may well be others ... but this is the only one I think I know of."

Since the horn hit the Internet May 4, Buchan has been pelted by hundreds of e-mails and phone calls seeking more information.

And as the interest for his horn grew, so did Buchan's interest in it. He said he began playing with the valves. As he took one apart, he noticed some paper coiled around a spring.

The typed note had been eaten away by time, its meaning unclear. To Buchan, the words that remain suggest a tantalizing message from the past. Could Fiske be asking the tuba's owner to somehow tell him where his instrument ended up?

"Know . . . name of the leader or the members . . . to me . . . enclosed envelope," read the remaining words. "Such a favor will be . . ."

The name below is bold: "ISAAC FISKE."

"It's like a treasure hunt," said Buchan, a Holiday resident who owns a small chain of cheesesteak restaurants in Clearwater and Pasco County.

Phil Holcomb of St. Pete Beach offered $4,000 for the instrument, which he wants to add to his 250-piece horn collection. Holcomb saw the tuba on the Internet and last week met Buchan to negotiate.

"It's getting almost past what it's worth," said Holcomb, 66, who said it would cost another $1,000 to restore the instrument. "It's an interesting horn, but I have just as many interesting horns."

Robb Stewart, a California brass instrument collector and restoration specialist, has seen dozens of Fiskes in his lifetime. But none quite like Buchan's, he said. He even owns a Fiske tuba - one he bought from a Florida garage sale - but it doesn't include a fourth valve. "Among brass collectors, finding a four-valve Fiske is a real find," Stewart said.

Representatives from the Smithsonian could not be reached for comment.

Now that it's worth something, Buchan isn't sure what he's going to do with his Fiske. The eBay auction ends Saturday, but Buchan can stop the bidding and end the auction before then.

Buchan said he wrote in a description for eBay that he had found the instrument in his grandfather's attic. He later told a reporter he wrote that because he thought the attic account would look better than if he'd bought it for $1 at a garage sale.

"I want to make sure it goes to someone who will care for it," Buchan said of the tuba. "But this isn't going to be a charity deal, either."

Times staff writers Katherine Lee and Chris Ave contributed to this report.

[Last modified May 11, 2005, 00:47:09]